Also, a photo caption accompanying an article Sunday on the first black fire captain in Baltimore County contained incorrect information. Activists in the Fire Department praised Acting Chief James H. Barnes for racial progress in the department but criticized actions of previous fire chiefs.
The Sun regrets the errors.
Mark E. Garrett's promotion as the first black captain in the Baltimore County Fire Department symbolizes a lack of racial progress as much as a step forward, says an organization of black county firefighters.
Seventeen years have passed since the federal government sued the county charging discrimination in hiring. The county, which had two black firefighters then, now has 68. But other than Captain Garrett, there is only one black fire officer, a lieutenant absorbed in 1988 with the takeover of the Bethlehem Steel fire station in Sparrows Point.
The 1,092-member department has been "run like a club," said James W. Artis Jr., an instructor at the county fire academy and president of the Guardian Knights, which was formed last year.
"It's business as usual, no one is changing," Knights Vice President Jerilynn E. Payne, a 13-year firefighter and academy instructor, told County Administrative Officer Merreen E. Kelly at a recent meeting.
However, the future looks brighter to Captain Garrett, 37, a 12-year veteran. Blacks have felt stymied in the Fire Department but the naming of James H. Barnes Jr. as acting chief last April has made a huge difference, he said.
"He's progressive," said Captain Garrett, a shift commander at the Halethorpe station who will be sworn in tomorrow night.
He and Chief Barnes, who was named acting chief after the retirement of Elwood H. Banister in May, said the department has made more racial progress in the past year than in the previous 10 years.
Mr. Artis said Mr. Barnes "is the first [chief] to listen" to black concerns. But feeling the need in 1995 to appeal to Mr. Kelly, the county's top appointed official, to ensure change is "unforgiveable," he said.
An open forum sponsored by the acting chief in May and the simultaneous formation of the Guardian Knights brought the problems to Chief Barnes' attention. "This is the 1990s, not the 1790s," the chief said, and racial discrimination now is more subtle. The forum dealt with a lack of black role models among the department's officers and other concerns.
"It opened my eyes," he said.
The concerns were matters as seemingly small as an innocuous mannequin of a firefighter that stood in the Public Safety Building at 700 E. Joppa Road. Blacks saw the white firefighter as a symbol of their exclusion. The chief removed it immediately, an action ridiculed by the firefighters union in its June newsletter. That ridicule, a drawing of a skeleton of the mannequin stripped of any possible offensive trait, demonstrated the union's quietly hostile attitude, Mr. Artis said.
Local 1311 President Kevin O'Connor disagreed, saying the drawing was symbolic only of someone's idea of a joke in a slow month when the newsletter needed to fill space. "There is no room for racial prejudice in the Fire Department," Mr. O'Connor said.
Chief Barnes said he is "not happy with the numbers" of minority firefighters or officers and wants changes but realizes they may not happen as quickly as desired. "If you try to turn a big ship around overnight, you might have an accident."
But he acted quickly after the May forum to create a Fair Practices Committee. Three subcommittees are preparing recommendations for changes in recruitment and treatment of minorities. A report is due this spring.
The Knights worry that if someone other than Mr. Barnes becomes permanent chief, the efforts could go for naught. That's why they met with Mr. Kelly, who promised to talk to County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger III.
Mr. Artis and his supporters say the department still operates in a racial time warp. Blacks, with about 12 percent of the county population, make up only 6 percent of the department. Including 93 white female firefighters and one Hispanic man, the department claims a 14.8 percent minority component.
In contrast, the police have 137 black officers in the 1,474-member force, or 9.3 percent, including a black major, two lieutenants, a sergeant and four corporals. With 133 white women and 14 other minorities, the police department is 19 percent minority.
The Knights want:
* Participation on any committee that chooses a permanent fire chief.
* Fair practices and conflict resolution training for high-ranking fire officers and training after recruit class for all uniformed employees.
* A fair practices administrator who is not subordinate to the fire chief but works from the county Office of Fair Practices with a direct line to the county administration.
* Continuous, vigorous recruitment of minorities.
Several Knights told Mr. Kelly that 75 percent to 80 percent of the recruits in training classes are sons, daughters, nephews and grandchildren of former county firefighters. Senior leaders never have been trained to deal with minorities and still operate the department like a family business, the Knights said.
* Elimination of the requirement that emergency medical fire recruits be state certified in their specialty as a precondition for application to the Fire Department. Most recruits get this certification through membership in volunteer fire companies, but blacks often don't feel welcomed by volunteers, Mr. Artis said.
Though the number of minorities is increasing, the department still is perceived as a white organization, Mr. Artis said. The Woodlawn and Randallstown stations, both in heavily black areas, have only one black firefighter between them.
That perception became clear in a comment from a child, he said.
A white firefighter on a school tour told him recently of talking to a black student who said, "I wish I was white so I could be a firefighter."