He was born in the back seat of a car in West Baltimore, on his way to the only hospital in town that would deliver black

infants.

For Louis H. Hopson Jr., life's lessons in discipline and courage began early. The son of an Army master sergeant -- a man of uncommon valor, with medals on his chest and shrapnel in his head to prove it -- Hopson also inherited no small measure of tenacity.

"My husband insisted on doing things one way, the right way," said Ruth Hopson, 70. "And once he decided what was right, you could not change his mind. He was very strong-willed. And Louis is the same way."

Said her son, "I can be pig-headed, especially when I know I'm right."

This week, Hopson's stubbornness was vindicated by a ruling from the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that found a pattern of discrimination in the way the Baltimore Police Department disciplines black officers.

A former sergeant in the Northeastern District, Hopson was fired this year for allegedly giving false testimony in a Baltimore Circuit Court case. Earlier, he had been stripped of his supervisory duties when it was discovered he had been convicted of assaulting a girlfriend before he joined the force 18 years ago.

He quickly challenged the disciplinary actions, charging that he had been singled out for extraordinary punishment because of his outspoken activism against racial discrimination in hiring, promotions and disciplinary action in the department -- a charge the department denies.

Now, Hopson wants his job back.

"It's all I ever wanted to be," the stocky, 47-year-old father of three said yesterday. "It's everything I am. It's about the uniform. It's about personal honor. It's about getting back my good name -- my father's good name."

It's also about winning a fight he has been waging all his life.

The oldest of six kids, Hopson vividly recalls standing in an alleyway as a little boy behind a shoe store in downtown Baltimore while the white proprietor traced his feet on a sheet of a cardboard.

His hometown was segregated then, and black children weren't allowed inside.

"It didn't matter that my mom was buying us the shoes for this big ceremony in Washington where my dad was going to get the Silver Star," Hopson said. "It didn't matter that my father had risked his life to save a bunch of guys from a burning tank in Korea -- that my dad was a war hero.

"We were black. And that was all anybody needed to know."

Hopson can't talk about his father for long without choking on his words. For a moment, his eyes well with tears. An Army veteran himself, he buried the old man two years ago at Arlington National Cemetery -- just as his problems with the department were coming to a head.

Educated mostly overseas, Hopson grew up as a classic Army brat, graduating in 1969 from Nuremberg American High School. He spoke German fluently by then. And he was a fixture on the school's baseball, softball and basketball teams.

Besides his brothers and sisters, he was the only African-American child anywhere in sight.

"I was too short to be real good in most sports," he said with a laugh. "But I got picked all the time because I was black. Even then, people knew that white men can't jump. Problem was, neither could I."

His true love was always bowling. Still is. He averages 200. And he met his wife of nine years, Stephanie, at the lanes. For the record, she's white, and the mother of two of his children. And they long ago learned to laugh at the gawkers and mumblers.

Less amusing has been Hopson's 17-year journey through Baltimore Police Department.

He recalls the night he lost three teeth trying to arrest a belligerent drunk in a Fairfield bar when white officers were slow to provide backup. He took a beer bottle in the mouth before another black officer got to his assailant.

He can also name all the black officers who he said were fired for minor infractions, passed over for promotion or injured in the street because of poor training or supervision.

"A lot of young black cops owe their lives to that man," said Sgt. Richard A. Hite Jr., a contemporary of Hopson's and the president of the Vanguard Justice Society, which represents some 700 black officers in the department. "Generation after generation, it was Lou who took them under his wing and showed them the way.

"He's a street cop, always has been. And at a time when there weren't many people in the department willing to speak out, he always did -- even when he was the only one."

His father, a mason who donned a suit and tie to march with Dr. Martin Luther King, wouldn't have had it any other way.

"Just before he died, I took him to the Million Man March," Hopson recalled. "And it was like a homecoming for him. His whole life had been leading up to that day. And he told me how proud he was of everything I'd done, of everything I'd become."

Despite his differences with the police command, the veteran that fellow officers call "Hop" was twice named Officer of the Year for leading the department in arrests and felony convictions. And in 1997, he was on the short list for lieutenant.

But he is proudest of the fact that he managed to deliver his oldest son -- Louis H. Hopson III -- to the Air Force Academy to carry on the family's tradition of military service. He says the lion's share of the credit goes to the young man's mother, the ex-girlfriend he assaulted 18 years ago.

"I was a younger man then," he says ruefully. "And I made a terrible mistake. Years later, I became a domestic violence investigator, and I learned just how terrible. But it's in the past now, and she and I are friends again."

Then the words stick in his throat once more.

"Maybe someday, my son will be equal to my father. Myself, I strive to be half as good as him everyday."

Pub Date: 12/24/98