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233 20 All 7’s T he first African-American officers in the Houston Police Department served in 1870 during Reconstruction. Those first blacks were believed to be state police officers whose job was to counteract Reconstruction Era violence against black citizens in Houston and around the state of Texas. These were known as “special officers”—a term used for decades to refer to African-Americans without the full authority of their white counterparts. HPD African-American police historian May Walker wrote The History of the Black Police Officers in the Houston Police Department 1878–1988, which revealed that three of HPD’s twenty-two officers in 1892 were the first black officers with full police authority. Hardly any records exist to show the names of these men, none of whom served more than five years. There is confusion over the years of service for the first fully identified black officer in HPD history. His name was Nathan Davis. His first year of service is reported as 1878; however, a picture of the twenty-six-member force in 1916 is the first and only departmental picture depicting Davis, a man approximately six-feet tall with a fully gray handlebar mustache. Officer Davis patrolled predominately black areas and had full authority with one exception —he could not arrest a white suspect without the assistance of a white officer, nor could he get a promotion.1 Davis didn’t own an HPD badge. The first black officers to receive badges were Issac Hayden, Badge No. 119, and Moses Moss, Badge No. 9. The year was listed as 1889, although subsequent research shows it was perhaps 1913. Oscar P. Robinson was the first black officer promoted to the rank of special detective. The number of blacks in HPD fluctuated from one to seven through 1913. This part of the early century saw two special officers with only partial authority give all they had for HPD. They were killed in the line of duty, Special Officer Isaac “Ike” Parsons on May 24, 1914 and Special Detective Ed Jones on September 13, 1929.2 234 Houston Blue Despite ever-ready dedication like that exhibited by Parsons and Jones, the number of black officers didn’t grow significantly throughout the decades leading to the 1950s. One African American officer joined the Houston Police Department in Class No. 1 in 1948. Edward A. Thomas went on to serve longer than any other HPD officer in history. Thomas served sixty-three years until his retirement in 2011 at the age of ninety-two. Over those years he earned such respect among his peers that everyone from the police chiefs to the newest cadets addressed him as “Mr. Thomas.” The veteran officer was particularly discreet—meaning he avoided news media interviews and refused all requests for pictures. The only published picture of Mr. Thomas, outside the photos of Class No. 1, appeared in a book about African Americans in HPD. He even refused the release of his police identification photo. Mr. Thomas began his tenure during segregation and enforcement of the Jim Crow laws in Houston. He seldom shared his thoughts about his early days in the department with anyone and never thought he would ever work under a black police chief. That changed when Lee P. Brown became the city’s first black chief in 1982. By the time Thomas retired, there had been four African-Americans in the position. Mr. Thomas was known to share his thoughts of the early days with the fourth person in that distinguished line, Police Chief Charles “Chuck” McClelland, appointed by Mayor Annise Parker in 2010. According to Chief McClelland, who took to calling this most senior officer “Mr. T,” Thomas was born in Louisiana. His father died when he was nine or ten years old, making him “the man of the house” that included his mother, a school teacher, and several sisters. The family lived in Nacogdoches in East Texas, where Mr. Thomas earned a high school diploma and attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He also served as an infantryman during World War II, spending only nine weeks stateside before serving several years in the European campaign, including the Normandy invasion. The slow process of police departments across the southern United States accepting African American officers began after the war. The process wasn’t easy for Mr. Thomas and others who joined HPD. After fighting for his country , the young officer could not attend roll call with white officers...

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