Transcript
Into America
The Black Firefighters of 9/11
Trymaine Lee: So Captain Washington, describe where we are right now and also what we’re lookin’ at.
Captain Paul Washington: We’re in front of Vulcan Hall which is Black firefighters’ headquarters in Brooklyn, Crown Heights.
Lee: Captain Paul Washington is the former president of the Vulcan Society, a brother and sisterhood of Black firefighters in New York City.
Washington: And we are lookin’ at a statue that was the dedicated to the 12 Black firefighters who died in 9/11.
Lee: Captain Washington is a 33-year veteran of the FDNY, the fire department of New York City. And like a lot of America this week, he’s going to be commemorating the 20-year anniversary of 9/11.
Washington: The actual statue consists of a Black firefighter in his full firefighting gear holdin’ his helmet to his chest lookin’ up towards heaven. And he’s standin’ on top of the World Trade Center. He’s got one foot on each tower. And you can see that the towers are in the process of collapsin’.
The front of the statue has a plaque with those 12 firefighters’ names: fire marshal Andre Fletcher, firefighter Tarel Coleman, firefighter Vernon Cherry, firefighter William Henry, firefighter Ronnie Henderson, firefighter Karl Joseph, firefighter Keithroy Maynard, firefighter Shawn Powell, Captain Vernon Richard, firefighter Leon Smith Jr., firefighter Gerard Baptiste, and firefighter Keith Glascoe.
Lee: But these aren’t just names. You knew these brothers.
Washington: Knew all 12 of ’em, yeah.
Lee: Pshew.
Washington: Fire marshal Andre Fletcher, he worked in rescue fire. And his brother Zack is still currently a New York City firefighter. Really nice guy, Andre. Tarel Coleman. I used to play on a football team. And I stopped playin’. Tarel, he joined the football team, and he took over my position. And ever since then they never asked me anymore to join. (LAUGH) Vernon Cherry, he was in Ladder 118 in Brooklyn down by the Brooklyn Bridge. He was a excellent singer. He used to sing the National Anthem at different events and so on. A really nice guy. William Henry.
Lee: (BACKGROUND VOICE OF WASHINGTON CONTINUES) Of the 343 firefighters who tragically died on 9/11, 12 were Black. And the fact that Captain Washington knew all 12 certainly speaks to his dedication to helping Black firefighters in the city. But it also speaks to how few of them in one of the most diverse cities on the planet were a part of the department in the first place. And the harsh reality of why that is.
Washington: But bein’ a Black firefighter is difficult a lotta times, you know? We’re in a predominantly white profession. And, you know, sometimes it could be hard certainly. It’s a great job. But, you know, when you’re Black on this job, it’s just like bein’ Black in America. It’s difficult.
Lee: (BACKGROUND VOICE OF WASHINGTON CONTINUES) Captain Washington knows his history. His father was one of the first Black firefighters on Staten Island. And as we sit at the bar inside of Vulcan Hall, he tells me that for 81 years the society has been a voice for Black firefighters.
Washington: When we were founded in 1940, one of the first things that we addressed was a practice they called called the “Black beds.” At night, the firefighters go to a bunk room. You know, between runs they lay down. And they had one particular bunk that was assigned to the Black firefighter.
No one else could sleep in that bunk. All the other bunks, you know, the linen was changed every day so you’d sleep wherever you want. But if you were Black, you were relegated to this one bunk. And of course it was near the broken window or by the bathroom or what have you. These are kind of things that the Vulcan Society faced and was able to change. And over the years, you know, we’ve faced a lot of such battles. And our biggest battle has always been gettin’ more Blacks into the job.
Lee: For much of Captain Washington’s career, starting in the late ’80s and including the time around 9/11, the number of Black firefighters has hovered between 2-4%, even though the city was and is a quarter Black. It’s a number that has always bothered the Vulcan Society.
Washington: Nothin’ comes easy, you know? Nothin’ comes easy. You gotta fight for it, you know? You gotta fight to be treated fairly. You gotta fight for them to change the policies that kept Blacks off of this job for so long. And the only gains that we’ve made in this job have been through fighting. You know, that’s the only way our numbers have increased at all was because we fought, and we fought hard to get it to change.
Lee: (BACKGROUND VOICE OF WASHINGTON CONTINUES) The Vulcan Society has worked hard to remember the Black firefighters who were lost on that day 20 years ago. For Captain Washington, that recognition is part of a longer fight to make sure all Black firefighters get their proper place of respect in the firehouse.
Washington: None of that changes without us makin’ it change, you know? I mean, the racism, this is a racist country. And the fire department’s no different.
Lee: I’m Trymaine Lee. And this is Into America. As America honors its nation’s firefighters, we take a look at the history of Black firefighters in New York City, the fight to get their foot in the door, the fight to be treated with respect, and at the tragedy, the fight to be remembered.
Kevin Maynard: Oh, yeah, my dad was a firefighter for 32 years. So had arranged for us go to the Vulcan Society to take the practice test and also the practice physical.
Lee: This is 50-year-old Kevin Maynard. And that accent you hear is from the Caribbean Island of Montserrat where he was born. Kevin moved to New York as a teenager. And he remembers going to the Vulcan Society in the early ’90s.
Maynard: That’s where I met Paul Washington. ‘Cause Paul worked with my dad when he first got on in the fire department. So I met Paul. And Paul was a young guy then. And, you know, (LAUGH) he was a lieutenant. And then he–
Lee: He’s listed now. So, like, he was young then.
Maynard: Yeah, he was.
Washington: Back then, yes. (LAUGH)
Lee: At Vulcan Society in Brooklyn, a young Paul Washington welcomed an ever younger Kevin and his twin brother Keith, two potential recruits.
Washington: Him and his brother Kevin, they’re twins. And they were both tryin’ to come onto the job. So, you know, we worked out with them, trained them and so on. And Keith got into the New York City Fire Department. Kevin did not. Keith came on and he joined the Vulcan Society. And Keith was a great guy. I used to say, “What do you think?” “He was a no limit soldier,” Keith used to say. (LAUGH) He was a great guy. Keith, that was my man, Keith.
Lee: That was the guy?
Washington: Yeah, yeah. Keith was. He was a good brother, Keith.
Lee: Growing up, he and Kevin were tight.
Maynard: We were very close. As we shared a bond together as identical twins, dressed alike. So we were always together. We share a lot of thoughts in common. You know, he started a sentence and I could finish it.
Lee: When they got older and moved to New York, they were even closer.
Maynard: We went to the same high school. I got a job at Continental Airline. I went and got him employed. So we worked together for a couple years back. It’s almost ten years. So we would share the same car. We did everything together. I don’t know if it’s safe to say, but we shared a driver’s license as kids. ‘Cause I got my driver’s license before him. So I’d give him my driver’s license to drive. (LAUGH) We shared–
Lee: Wow.
Maynard: –benefits together, fine, you know?
Lee: That’s amazing.
Maynard: Because you couldn’t tell the difference.
Lee: Yeah. Like, Captain Washington, Kevin and Keith had a dad who was an FDNY firefighter. But it wasn’t something they were drawn to, especially growin’ up in East Flatbush in central Brooklyn.
Maynard: Growin’ up there, you don’t see firefighters. I think my dad was the only firefighter I knew in that neighborhood or in any neighborhood that I’ve been into. ‘Cause there wasn’t much of us to look at.
Lee: They never saw Black firefighters on the fire trucks.
Maynard: It’s not a place I ever thought I wanted to be at until we were kind of nudged that direction.
Lee: That nudge came from the Vulcan Society.
Maynard: My dad set it up so we could attend the sessions. And so we went. And I met quite a few guys. And, you know, they shared some of these stories. So you kinda get a sense of pride bein’ there. And I think that’s what I got when I was there. You know, you put the pride, and you wanted to come out on top of the list. You want to put the effort. You make a priority and you want to be part of that small organization. And that’s what I thought when I actually went through the program that they were putting through.
Lee: Wow.
Maynard: Yeah.
Lee: And so you take the physical and the written test. You feel pretty prepared for me. How did y’all end up scorin’?
Maynard: Well, on the written test, Keith scored a 98. I scored a 97. And we both scored 100 on the physical.
Lee: At the time, to even make the initial hiring list, you had to score a 95%. So Kevin and Keith had both made the cut. But these written tests are only administered every four to five years. So the wait to get into an academy and start the rest of the hiring process was notoriously long. And the higher you score, the higher your priority on the list.
Maynard: In New York, one point different is it’s not, there’s a bunch of people. It’s, you know, it’s a large number. It’s not just, ’cause there’s so much people that take the test. So you have that difference between one point. So one point could be 500 people, or it could be 200 people. And so it took actually almost five years for, to get a callback from them. So Keith got a call before I did. And he got on the job in ’99 I think.
Lee: While they were waiting to hear back from the FDNY, Kevin got them both jobs at Continental Airlines. For Kevin, it was a good union job that he was happy to have. So when Keith eventually got that call from the FDNY, the brothers for the first time in their lives headed in different directions.
Maynard: I kinda drift away from the fire department. But then he got on the job. So there was someone there. So, you know, it was a proud moment for us.
Lee: It wasn’t sort of like your best friend was movin’ to a different college. It felt like, “No, that’s what’s up.” Like–
Maynard: Yeah.
Lee: –congratulations.
Maynard: It was family effort, man. You know, it was, I would sit down and help him study. My mom would make breakfast, get up early in the mornin’, make sure you have breakfast to go to the academy. And then my dad took him to the academy. Showed up, like, 5:00 in the morning the first morning. You know what? The whole neighborhood in Brooklyn was on it, you know? (LAUGH) They always, “Hey, man, you need to go study. You can’t be hangin’ out.” (LAUGH) So it was like–
Lee: You’re like, “Man, should I get a beer?” Like, “No, man–
Maynard: No, yeah.
Lee: –you go study. That’s what you need to do, man. Come on.”
Maynard: Yeah, so it was a group effort. It was the primary effort in the people in the neighborhood.
Lee: That’s amazing. So he gets the job. Everybody’s so proud of him. But were there hurdles? Like, did he have some tough times?
Maynard: Yeah. There was a issue with his driver’s license that the city had tickets, which he didn’t have. So we had to get that cleared up and get a letter from a judge that he didn’t have tickets. Then there was a issue with his medical where the doctor said he had a heart murmur.
Then if it wasn’t for my dad was in the fire department, just he realized, “Hey, you could appeal this.” Then normally you get kicked out. So I think for a lotta Africans, especially African Americans that they’ll get kicked out off the list because of some kind of medical issue. But they didn’t know they could appeal it.
Lee: Finally in 1999 after years of waiting, training, and hoping, Keith graduated from the fire academy and joined the FDNY. He was first stationed with Engine Company 220 in Black, then moved to Engine 33 in Manhattan. And he joined the Vulcan Society right away. He became the youngest member of the executive board and was outspoken about the lack of Black people on the job. Like Paul Washington, he wanted to be part of changing the department. Kevin headed off to Texas. And he remembers how Keith and Paul bonded over wanting to change the New York Fire Department.
Maynard: He and Paul became great friends ’cause they were very passionate about what they were doing. And the last time I saw him over here, dropped me at the airport. And ’cause I was commuting back and forth to Texas. And he took me to the airport ’cause he was goin’ to the fire academy to do a recruitment.
Because there was a class gettin’ ready to graduate. So we drove to LaGuardia. And I end up missin’ my flight. And so he hung out with me for another hour or two. ‘Cause he had time before he was goin’ to the academy. We hung out. And then it was time for me to catch my flight. And he drove off to the academy. And that’s the last time I saw him.
Lee: Wow. That was September 7th, 2001, four days before 9/11. All of us remember where we were that day. And I wonder what memories you have of that day from the very beginning before even everything happened. What are your memories of that day?
Maynard: I think that day, (LAUGH) you know, it was just a common day until I found out that something happened at the World Trade Center. You know, growing up in New York there’s always air traffic going up the Hudson River. So I thought it was just probably one of these small planes hit the tower. I didn’t know my brother was workin’ that day until my mom called and says, “Hey, your brother’s at work.” I turned on the TV. And I think I got Peter Jennings. I remember it.
Charles Gibson: Peter Jennings is at the anchor desk uptown here in New York and is now in position. Peter, I suspect you are looking at exactly the same pictures. Well, I know you’re looking at the same pictures we are.
Peter Jennings: We are, Charlie. We’ve been watching it from the beginning. We’ll be watching this for much of the day. There is chaos in New York at the moment. There have been not one, but two incidents as Charlie and I–
Maynard: But I still didn’t know my brother was there. All of a sudden here come, the Trade Center come down. And in my mind I thought, “Well, I’m happy they got out before it come down.” Until I got Peter Jennings, “Oh, it’s a sad day in America. All these firefighters lost their lives.” And that’s when it hit me.
Jennings: John McKenzie who’s out on the streets of New York has spoken to the New York City Fire Department officials. And they report many missing firemen, perhaps as many as 200.
Lee: What did it feel like when you realized that your brother was in there?
Maynard: I was numb. And I couldn’t believe it. You know, and it’s like, “Oh, man, I hope he’s not caught up in this.” So I immediately called his phone. And then I got his voicemail. It was just a wait. So I remember watchin’ it. And then it got to a point where I couldn’t watch it anymore.
And then I got emotional. And I just couldn’t. You know, it’s, well, growin’ up as kids I remember watchin’ a show on PBS about twins. And it was about these twins that were working on the power lines. And the guy said he remembered when his twin brother got electrocuted ’cause he felt it.
So I didn’t feel anything. So I said, “Okay, I guess he’s alive.” So I was holding onto that hope. ‘Cause there was no sense. I didn’t feel anything. ‘Cause I remember growing up together, you know, when something happened I always could sense that somethin’ was wrong with him, you know?
So or he get in a fight, I say, “Somethin’ is goin’ on.” So I’d rush over there. So at this point, I didn’t feel anything. I was numb to it. And time proceeded. I tried to call New York. You couldn’t call New York ’cause all the lines were down. And I think it was at 10:00 Houston time, I was able to call the firehouse.
And I called. And I asked to speak to him. He says, “Hey, we’re doin’ a head count. So call back in a couple of minutes.” And I’m sayin’, “You know, this place is small.” It’s, like, easy to count 12 guys. (LAUGH) And I’ll call, right? Ten minutes felt like ten hours. And I called back. And he said, “Hold on. Let me let you speak to the captain.” And the captain go on and he asked where I was. And I was Texas. He said, “Well, I think you might want to come to New York.”
Lee: Keith was in the north tower of the World Trade Center. And he along with six other members of Engine 33 were killed in the collapse. Like other firefighters in New York on 9/11, Captain Washington remembers it well. He was off the day, but got an emergency order to report to the firehouse with every other firefighter in New York City. They took city buses down to the site of the World Trade Center. And by the time they got there, the towers had fallen.
Washington: And then once we got there, we went to work. Our buildin’ was on fire. The whole buildin’ was fully engulfed in flames. And after we put that fire out, which took hours, we then went and searched. You know, we started searchin’ all through the rubble.
And I wanted to get that fire out so that we could start searchin’ as soon as possible. Because I just knew that there were gonna be a lot of victims on the surface or right below the surface. Right after the buildin’ falls, is the best time to find victims. And we started searchin’. And we didn’t find anybody. You know, we looked. You know, of course there were hundreds of firefighters lookin’ through the debris. We found nobody.
Lee: How many of the firefighters that were lost, how many did you know?
Washington: Oh, I knew dozens of ’em. You know, I probably knew 40 or 50.
Lee: Including the 12 Black officers–
Washington: Including the 12 Black, yeah.
Lee: When did you first begin to, you know, talk to their families? I mean, I know it must have been a devastating time, obviously. But when did you start reachin’ out to them?
Washington: Soon after, maybe within a couple of days, you know, once it became clear the Black firefighters that were missin’. You know, I began callin’ their families. And one of the instances was my worst nightmare come true. There was a firefighter named Shawn Powell who I had helped to get onto the job.
We got him onto the job, and he subsequently perished. And that was always one of my biggest fears. You know, ’cause I pushed so hard to get Blacks on. What happens if one day one of ’em that I helped get on ends up dyin’? And that’s what happened.
Lee: Now, if you’re old enough, you probably remember what that time after 9/11 was like. Around-the- clock coverage of firefighters searching for the remains of victims including their fallen brothers. Firefighters in every city were passing around the boot to collect money for rescue efforts. And the fallen firefighters were America’s heroes. But there was something troublin’ that Captain Washington started to notice.
Washington: One thing we was that not enough attention was bein’ paid to Black firefighters who died in the line of duty on that day. Shortly after 9/11, Saturday Night Live, the first show after 9/11, had Mayor Giuliani appeared on stage to open the show surrounded by about 20 or 25 emergency service workers, first responders.
Mayor Giuliani: Since September 11, many people have called New York a city of heroes. Well, these are the heroes: (APPLAUSE) the brave men and women of the New York Fire Department, the New York Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department, Fire Commissioner Tom Von Essen. (APPLAUSE)
Washington: All of them were white except for maybe one person. You know, and that’s set the tone, you know, that we’re not gonna really look at this through the lens of Black firefighters, through the lens of Black people who may have died. And since then we’ve pushed hard to get our stories out there, the stories of the 12 Black firefighters who died.
Lee: When you think back to that SNL show, when you see Giuliani and the two dozen mostly white firefighters, and from one of the most diverse cities on the planet, what message did that send that they didn’t even have one or two Black officers, any representation?
Washington: It just, you know, that we didn’t matter. You know, that Black lives don’t matter, you know? And that’s clearly what the message was that got put out there. And, you know, I don’t know if they didn’t think of it or whether it was willful or not. But they didn’t care.
Lee: Kevin Maynard and some of the other relatives of the 12 Black firefighters who were killed started to feel overlooked too.
Maynard: There are still people that didn’t know that there were 12 African Americans that got killed in the fire department. They never saw it. I think it’s because there was a image of them throughout that whole deal in 9/11. There wasn’t always a picture of ’em. There’s one or two stories, but then it was just forgotten.
Lee: And there’d be memorial gatherings that his family wouldn’t hear about. He didn’t think it was willful necessarily. But it was noticeable.
Maynard: So and that’s the issue that we had is that the fire department is a close-knit group. So if you were Irish or Italian, there’s a legacy where you had a dad and a cousin, a uncle. And it’s on, so it was always these bunch of guys. It’s based on numbers. So if, the greater the numbers are, then the more common you become. The smaller the number are, they’re easier to forget. And I think this is a situation like that.
Lee: When we come back, how Kevin and Paul moved forward and worked to honor Keith’s legacy in the years after 9/11.
Lee: In the year following 9/11, as Kevin Maynard was grieving the loss of his brother, he traveled to Colorado Springs to attend a memorial service for fallen firefighters. And he met someone from the Houston Fire Department.
Maynard: We had a conversation ’cause he thought I was a firefighter in New York ’cause of the T-shirt I had on. And I told him, “No, I work in Houston.” And he said, “Hey, the fire department in Houston hirin’.” And he kind of, he took my number and said, “I’m gonna send you a application.” But you meet people in bars. It’s like, “Hey, yeah, I’m gonna send this to you.” But he actually did it. He actually called me and he was pushin’ me to do it.
Lee: Kevin hadn’t thought about firefighting in a while at this point, it had been nearly a decade since the firefighting test back in New York. But this guy, he just wasn’t takin’ no for an answer.
Maynard: Well, I wasn’t interested. But he was, like, persistent. And I didn’t want to be, for lack of a better word, ungrateful. So I filled out the application. And I took the test. And I thought the process was like in New York where you actually waited five years to get on. And so I think in five years they’ll forget me. And then I’ll just move on with my life.
Lee: But the Houston Fire Department didn’t forget him. Kevin received a phone call asking him to come down to the department to take a physical test. It was nothin’ like the process back in New York. A couple of months after the exam, he was asked to come take a final class in September.
Maynard: I got on in September. And so my actual date, hire date, is September 11th, 2002.
Lee: Wait, did it just happen to be that?
Maynard: Yeah, it just happened to be that.
Lee: That’s crazy. (LAUGH) So when you were goin’ through this process, first you did like, “I don’t want to be rude to this guy.” You end up gettin’ in. The process is all fast. But how much was your brother playin’ in your mind when you were walking through these steps?
Maynard: It played on my mind at first because, first I hated it. ‘Cause I didn’t want any guys to think my academy has to know. And then ’cause I didn’t want the pressure. And I didn’t want the different treatment. So I went to the academy. I think when I got to almost the end of it is when it really hit me that, hey, I’m actually doin’ what he did. And so I got emotional, like, on the last day.
Lee: Kevin didn’t tell his fellow classmates about his brother and his personal connection to 9/11. But they were twins. And one of his classmates saw a picture of Keith on one of those memorials for the fallen firefighters. So pretty soon, they figured it out.
Maynard: And the day of my graduation, we went to the ceremony. And the chief said, “Hey, somebody wanted to speak to you.” So I thought, “Oh, man, I got in trouble already for, (LAUGH) and I had no–
Lee: Already?
Maynard: Yeah, and I’m just graduatin’. But then I found the guys that worked with my brother from New York came down.
Lee: A few of his brothers, fellow firefighters, had surprised Kevin and flew down for his graduation.
Maynard: And when they got to my name, it stopped. So I said, “Man, what’s goin’ on?” And then these guys came. They actually you to pin the badge on you.
Lee: Wow.
Maynard: You know, that’s when I had the sense of, “Ugh.” I mean.
Lee: Yeah. Kevin has now been with Houston fire for over 18 years. He’s currently a lieutenant in a majority Black firehouse. And as he’s moved up the ladder, he’s thought of his brother every step of the way.
Maynard: So and many times I’m on the fire truck and I’ve gotten to a point where he hasn’t gotten to. I’ve gotten promoted. And he didn’t get a chance to get promoted. It’s like you’re continuin’ where he left us. I felt that way. When actually like, “Okay, I’m pickin’ up from where he left us.” I need to do this. I need to do that.
Lee: During Kevin’s time in the department, Houston fire has hovered between 15% and 17% Black, in a city with a similar Black population to New York City, about 25%. So Houston is still lagging in representation. But it’s not nearly as drastic as in New York where after 9/11, Paul Washington kept working to carry on the legacy of his fallen brothers at the Vulcan Society.
Washington: Well, most of the fire department’s history, we were maybe 3% of the New York City Fire Department. And this is a history that stretches back over 150 years.
Lee: Getting more Black firefighters into the department had always been a priority of the Vulcans. Like, their work recruiting Keith and Kevin. But the numbers were not goin’ up. Captain Washington saw several trap doors that the FDNY was putting in front of Black applicants. One of them was the medical exam.
Washington: You’ve passed all of the test. You come down and take a medical exam. They listen to your heart. They check your lungs. They take blood tests and all of that. Whites were failin’ that test at about 12%. Blacks were failin’ that test at 32%. 32% of Blacks comin’ through for the medical exam were bein’ denied the job because of some sort of medical problem. That’s ridiculous. And that problem had been goin’ on for 100 years, you know?
Lee: That was a easy way to kinda just, like, cut some of these applicants sayin’, “Hey, they failed the medical.”
Washington: That’s right. And now once you fail that medical, you’re out. You can’t come on the job. And that was brought to the fire department’s attention. The fire department didn’t do anything about it. They would just blow us off basically.
Lee: This was the same medical exam that almost kept Keith Maynard off the job. The Vulcan Society also took issue with the written exam.
Washington: What we said all along was, “The written test doesn’t say if you were gonna be a good firefighter or a bad firefighter.” If you get a 99 on that written test or you get a 95 on that written test, the guy with the 99, there’s nothin’ sayin’ he’s gonna be better at puttin’ out a fire than the guy with the 95.
Everybody agrees to that. But still, if you got a 95 on the test, you’re not gettin’ the job, you know? And Blacks tended to do not as good on the test for various reasons. But none of those reasons had to do with how good a firefighter you’re gonna be.
Lee: Remember, this entrance exam also loomed large for Keith and his brother Kevin. Even though they both scored well, that one point difference between a 98 and a 97 was the difference between Keith getting the job and Kevin having to wait and see.
Washington: So why are we usin’ that test? Why use that test? Let’s come up with a test that’s gonna be a better indicator of how good a firefighter you’re gonna be. And we’ll do just fine.
Lee: When you look back, and you think about the fire department and the city fighting you guys, did they say like, “You know what? We have a problem. And we need to get better”? Or they said, “Oh, there’s no problem here. We’ll just handle it ourselves”? What was the stance of the city and the fire department?
Washington: I mean, we brought these issues to their attention. And they just would either, they would blow us off basically, you know. Sometimes they admitted that, yeah, in fact the test did bear no correlation to how good a firefighter you were gonna be. Sometime they did admit that there were other reasons why. You know, that, yeah, they should recruit more. But they never did. You know, they never did. You know, we had to force them to do it.
Lee: Legal action became a necessary part of the Vulcan Society strategy for inclusion.
Washington: In 1999, we really started legal action against the fire department, you know? I filed an EEOC grievance with the federal government which turned into the Justice Department investigatin’ the fire department.
Lee: The Justice Department found merit in the Vulcan Society’s grievances. In 2007, the DOJ sued the New York City Fire Department for discrimination. The Vulcan Society joined that lawsuit and won.
Washington: We won the lawsuit based on the written test, the entrance exam. We knew we were gonna win. It was hands-down we were gonna win. And why the city even battled us and wanted to bring this to court was beyond me, you know? Mayor Bloomberg at the time, he says, “Oh, no, you know, no judge is gonna tell me what to do.” Yeah, you’re gonna lose this lawsuit. A judge is gonna tell you exactly what to do.
Lee: In 2009, federal judge Nicholas G. Garaufis ruled against the FDNY claiming the entrance exams were discriminatory. He found that approximately 1,000 Black and Hispanic applicants would have been considered for appointment if the city had used a fair test. He wrote, “When an employment test is not adequately related to the job for which it tests, and when the test adversely affects minority groups, we may not fall back on the notion that better test takers make better employees.”
The following year, that same judge found that not only did the city discriminate, but they had done so intentionally. That ruling was later overturned on appeal. But for the FDNY, the damage was done. What does your gut tell you about why thought fought so hard? And we’re just talkin’ about tryin’ to recruit, you know, again in one of the most diversities in the country, just tryin’ to recruit some more Blacks so the department reflects what the community is like? Why do you think they fought so hard?
Washington: Racism. Just racism.
Lee: Straight up.
Washington: I mean, America, that’s it. America is a racist country. It always has been. Probably always will be. And the fire department’s no different. I mean, you know, racism exists in the fire department, you know, from top to bottom, you know, without question. And there was no desire to change it. And they had to be forced to change it. You know, I mean, it’s like that in all aspects of American life. And the fire department’s no different.
Lee: So while Captain Washington has been frustrated that the department would not make changes without a judge’s order, those court orders had had a significant impact. A court monitor has overseen FDNY hiring practices since 2011. And starting in 2013, the FDNY was under court order to implement new hiring standards. These included giving some minority applicants who had failed a previous exam a chance to retake it.
Washington: As of 2013, the numbers of Blacks comin’ on have increased by a lot. And so have the numbers of Hispanics and women and every other group of color.
Lee: That same year, 2013, marked the most diverse incoming class of firefighters in New York City history with people of color making up over 60% of the new hires.
Washington: Well, the numbers have gone up certainly. The numbers of Blacks now, we’re at about 8-9% which is about the national average. Although most major cities have much higher percentages. So we still got a long way to go. But we’re out of that 2% and 3% that we’d historically been in.
But ironically more Blacks comin’ into the fire department creates more friction in a lot of firehouses. ‘Cause firehouses that never had any Black firefighters now all of a sudden have Black firefighters. Or a firehouse that might have two or three Black firefighters now all of a sudden has, you know, seven or eight. And so it causes friction in those areas.
Lee: I asked Captain Washington what the changes in the written exam might have meant for Keith and Kevin Maynard back in the early ’90s.
Washington: They were separated by one point. And that meant the difference between one gettin’ a job and one not, you know? And the test that we give today is a much better indicator. And, look, Kevin didn’t make the cut. But he goes to Houston to a big department down there and becomes a lieutenant. There’s no question he could have been a excellent firefighter here in New York City. So people like Kevin would have been able to get onto the job now. And, you know, we’re glad that we’ve been able to make that difference.
Lee: Kevin Maynard knows his brother would have been happy to see the hard-fought changes that Vulcan Society was able to achieve, especially regarding the increase in new Black firefighters. Still it’s hard for Kevin to see his brother’s dream come true without him here to experience it.
Your brother was committed to diversifying the force. And since 9/11, the number jumped from, like, 2-3% to 9%. I mean, that’s a three-fold increase. What’s it like for you to come back home and see, you know, brothers and sisters, like, with that uniform on on those engines? Or how does that feel?
Maynard: Well, you know, (LAUGH) it’s two-fold. ‘Cause it’s good to see it. I mean, I go back to New York. I tend to see more younger African Americans on these fire trucks. For me, I think I wanted him to be around to see it. So you have that sense of guilt. Man, I wish he was here to see, you know, the effort you put in. But he’s not here to see the reward. ‘Cause he wanted to move back to the neighborhood in Brooklyn to say, “Hey, man, open up the door. I want to be out here so people can see me and say ‘This is opportunity is open to you. Just come on in.’”
Lee: Kevin’s planning to be in New York this year for the Vulcan Society’s memorial to the 12 fallen firefighters. It’ll be held in a small park in Brooklyn. Here we are at another anniversary of 9/11. And I wonder when you think back and reflect on the years that have passed since then and that day, how do you think about this moment and process it, when obviously this moment is deeply personal for you? How do you reflect on this moment? Here we are 20 years later.
Maynard: Well, you know, I think my reflection started, like, actually earlier this year. ‘Cause we were born in January. So my birthday, and I realized, “Man, it’s been 20 years.” You know what I’m sayin’? I’ve been without my brother for 20 years. So, you know, we’ve always celebrated our birthdays together.
So and then I stopped doin’ it. It seems it was yesterday and obviously goin’ through, every year around now, you go through emotions. But I think because it’s 20 years, and there’s so much hype around it, you know, it puts a lot of pressure on you. So, you know, and you don’t know how to act or what to approach.
Like, ’cause you don’t want to be that type of person that’s overly emotional. But you don’t want to not show some emotions. And you want to be private, but then you’re forced to. ‘Cause everybody wants to know. So I’ve realized 9/11 just not only affects me, it’s part of everyone.
But then I’m just the one holdin’ the burden of it. You know, everybody remembers it. But I have the personal sacrifice. And that’s the difference. I’ve always thought 9/11, during that time I try to not watch the TV, ’cause I don’t like to see the building come down. ‘Cause when the buildin’ comin’ down, then I realize, “This is the end of my brother.” So I tend to turn away from it.
Lee: Does it ever get any easier?
Maynard: Not really. The only thing that’s easy for you to do in a sense, but you still have that sense of loss. ‘Cause, you know, sometime I look at myself in the mirror. And now I got gray hair. And he doesn’t. I look at him. He doesn’t have gray hair. You know, so you kinda, it dawns on you.
And sometimes when I remember. After it get to you for forgettin’, so you have these emotions that you deal with. And then especially around this time of year. And then now I’m in the fire department. And a lotta guys come up to me and they ask me questions, you know? And so it’s become easier to talk about it.
Lee: What do you hold onto when you think about, like, the goodness of your brother and the goodness of your relationship?
Maynard: I think what I hold onto is: growing at some point, you know, you get to a point where you don’t want to address it, like, any more. You wanted your own identity. But now I wish I had the opportunity to maybe dress alike. You know, stuff that we did when we was younger.
Lee: Is there anything that you would want to tell your brother now if you could?
Maynard: (LAUGH) There’s a bunch of things that I want to tell him. (LAUGH) You know, I want to tell him about my first fire or my last fire. You know, I drive the fire trucks here. And then that’s he always wanted to do. So I drive it here. And, you know, a lotta times when I’m driving, I’ve done a couple of rescues. And, you know, you want to share it. Like, hey, I did this. I did that. You know, but I just write ’em down. I tend to write ’em down. So at some point I’ll probably share it with him whenever we see each other again.
Lee: Into America is produced by Isabel Angell, Allison Bailey, Bryson Barnes, Aaron Dalton, Max Jacobs, Aisha Turner, and Lushik Wahba. Original music is by Hannis Brown. Special thanks this week to Gidon Arnold, Stefanie Cargill, Tony D’Amico, Guy Hernandez, Bob Lapp, and Bob Riggio for their help in the field. I’m Trymaine Lee. See you next Thursday.