Every day when Milford Fonza arrived for his shift as a firefighter at Station 1 in downtown Des Moines, he was greeted with racial harassment from his co-workers.
That was his reward for the two years of effort it took him to land the job in 1967, making him the city’s first Black firefighter in nearly 50 years.
The then-fire chief, who was required to hire Fonza, told him to expect the job to be tough and that he would never be promoted. But the East High School graduate remained dedicated to his role, hoping his presence would inspire other people of color to challenge segregated environments.
“The general wisdom back then was you couldn’t aspire to be one if you didn’t see one,” Fonza told the Des Moines Register on Friday, May 22, during the grand opening of the newly constructed Fire Station 4 at 1505 Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway in Des Moines’ near north side.
Looking back on his career, the now-retired Fonza said the Des Moines Fire Department has come a long way. The new 21,000-square-foot facility replaces the city’s second-oldest station, where racial integration truly began for the Des Moines Fire Department, Fire Chief Jonathan Lund said during the event.
“This is where we realized that we are better together, that we are a stronger team because of our differences,” Lund said.
By 1970, Walt Williams and Terry Knox joined Fonza as the only Black firefighters on the city’s 300-member force. Even though there were still segregated “Black bunks” there, the racial harassment did not follow Fonza to Station 4.
“For the first time being on the fire department, I felt like I was part of a crew that I could trust and that welcomed me,” Fonza said.
Before his arrival at Station 15, which later became Station 4, people in the majority-Black neighborhood would throw rocks at the University Avenue building and its fire trucks. That stopped when Fonza relocated to Station 4, as he was also a neighborhood resident and used his community ties to build better relationships with the neighbors.
“Everybody in the community knew me because I didn’t live far from the fire station on University,” Fonza said. “So it was inspiring for the young Black men and women in that community to finally see a Black person in the fire department.”
After six years of serving his hometown, Fonza resigned in 1973 because the department still refused to promote him. He moved to California, where he would later become the fire chief for the city of Compton.
The grand opening of Fire Station 4 represented a welcome home for Fonza, who traveled from California, and the historic strides he achieved for the department, said Des Moines firefighter Ahman Douglas.
“Home means many different things to many different people,” Douglas said. “But it should be a place where you feel included. You feel safe. You feel valued, and you feel seen and heard.”
What does the new Fire Station 4 look like?
While serving on the Black Chief Officers Committee of the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters during the California chapter of his career, Fonza visited fire stations all over the United States. Few were comparable to the newly opened Fire Station 4, he said.
“I have been in a lot of fire stations, and this is the nicest fire station I have ever been in,” he said.
Roughly two years in the making, Fire Station 4 not only promises to improve response times but offers amenities to promote the physical and mental health of its staff, Mayor Connie Boesen said at the event.
“It was the right time and opportunity to replace the second-oldest fire station in the city,” Boesen said. “It provides the opportunity to enhance training capabilities and resources afforded to our firefighters across the entire department.”
The most striking feature for those passing by on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and 19th Street is the station’s four-story training tower. It allows firefighters to learn how to handle technical rescues similar to one in April, when firefighters were able to extricate a window washer clinging to scaffolding that had fallen from Capital Square in downtown Des Moines.
The tower includes a simulated elevator shaft and balconies for rope rescues. Firefighters also can practice trench rescues using a permanent one on the adjacent training ground. Previously, the city Public Works Department had to dig a trench for the trainings at the fire administration building.
Inside the station, yellow hoses that hang from the ceiling connect to the fire trucks’ exhaust to reduce staff exposure to carcinogens. Individual sleeping quarters and study rooms also are available and there is a small community space where neighbors can gather for meetings.
Who was the first Black firefighter in Des Moines?
Des Moines’ first Black firefighter was Fred Jackson, according to a 1908 article in the Bystander, a newspaper that served Des Moines’ Black community. In his 24-year tenure, Jackson was “always the first to arrive” when a fire occurred in his district, according to the article.
The Des Moines Fire Department went on to hire Alex Wilburn and Joseph Hamilton, bringing the total count of Black firefighters in the city to three. At one point, there even was talk of giving the men their own station, according to the NAACP Des Moines Branch.
But by 1919, the department didn’t have a single Black firefighter.
“For the next nearly fifty years, the department’s doors were closed, not by accident, not by lack of qualified candidates, but by deliberate racial exclusion,” an NAACP account said. “Fred Jackson’s remarkable career was followed not by progress, but by erasure.”
Fonza’s hiring broke a barrier, but not completely. Hiring of black firefighters dried up, and in 1980, the NAACP sued the city over hiring discrimination. A subsequent consent decree required the department to undertake affirmative action recruitment and hiring until the Black share of employment reached 6.8%, equal to the Black proportion of Des Moines’ general workforce, the NAACP account said.
Ten years later, the NAACP reported, Black representation in the fire department had reached 12%.
Kate Kealey is the growth and development reporter for the Register. Reach her at kkealey@registermedia.com or follow her on Twitter at @Kkealey17.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines’ new fire station honors hard-won integration of department
Reporting by Kate Kealey, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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