A Black Man’s Life in America During the Twentieth Century

I am a man of few words and must say from the start that words do not come easily to me.  Which makes the fact I am saying anything, especially about myself, quite unusual.  I think of myself as a man of action more than deep reflection.  And although I do think about some things as much (or as little) as the next man, I am not an especially introspective person.  Nor do I dwell upon the complexities of life. Nor am I terribly well read, although a few books have had an immense impact on my life.  The fact is, as I think about it, that I have gained my way into this my eighty fifth year on the planet, mostly by persistence, desire, brawn, by my sheer physical strength, and my immense stubborn will.  By my deeds, I say … deeds and few words.  The fact I am saying any of this at all actually makes very little sense, but I’m trying.

The fact is I don’t talk about myself and I don’t philosophize.  Never have.  Never found it all that interesting frankly.

This particular project actually began because of my grandson Robert.  A strange young man, I tease him, who comes over to my apartment on One Hundred and Seventeenth St. one fine day and informs me he is taking an oral history class at City University and that he wants me to tell him the history of my life.  Gives me this little tape recorder and these tapes.  Says to me, “Grandpa, please just tell me the story of your life,” as if it was a story I actually knew, when truth is I have hardly looked at myself for one minute of one day, except in the mirror when I dress or shave, or walking past the window of some darkened storefront on the avenues.  “What do I have to say, young fool,” I ask him.  And he says, “Come on, gramps, be real, you know your life is an interesting story, please, just talk into the tape recorder as if you were talking to me and telling me one of your tales.”

Now honestly, there is nothing inherently more interesting in my story than in the next fellow’s story if you ask me.  I didn’t fight in a war overseas.  I didn’t win a gold medal at the Olympics.  I haven’t written any books.  And it’s damned sure I haven’t amassed a great fortune.  And I wasn’t even the first Negro fire fighter in the history of the New York City Fire Department.  But I was the first Negro fire chief in the history of the New York City and surely I was the first Black Battalion Chief in New York City Fire Department history, maybe unto now for all I know.  And I suppose that’s what Robert thinks about when he asks me to tell him my story.

I have lived in these so-called United States of America all my life.  What can I tell you?  I’ve actually lived in New York City all my life.  Fact is, I’d just as soon not leave the Bronx or Manhattan if I had my druthers.  As an adult I was certainly free to leave and I clearly and definitively did not, notwithstanding the pain of the everyday and of our history.  I am an American, after all, and I am proud of that fact as a Black man.

This whole project, of me recording into this tape recorder thing, actually started out because my grandson Robert, a strange young man I tell him, came over to my apartment on One Hundred and Seventeenth Street one day, and told me he was taking an oral history class at City University.  Asked me to tell him the story of my life.  Gave me a little tape recorder and these tapes and said with that straight and earnest face Robert has, “Grandpa, please, just tell me the story of your life and I‘ll have the tape running,” as if the story of my life was a story I actually knew.  Strange young man, that Robert.  Always into books.  And oh my how earnest he is.  Truth is I have hardly looked at myself for one minute of one day, except in the mirror when I dress, or shave, or walk past some of the big windows of some of the storefronts on the avenues. 

Oh I know well that some people regard me with a admiration and respect, at least these days they do, but that has to do with my deeds, my rank, my status, my accomplishments and not with the inner man, although I’m sure the inner man is a reflection of the outer public man, and vice versa.  I just really never looked at it and I don’t think anyone ever actually asked me to.

“What do I have to say about anything, young fool,” I asked him. 

And he said, “oh just please, grandpops, please, just talk into the tape recorder as if you were standing at the pearly gates reviewing your life with god.

“Now you know I don’t believe in that foolishness, Robert, you know that,” I said.

“Well then just talk into the tape recorder as if you were telling your mother what happened to you after she died.  Tell grandma what happened to you.  Tell her.”

“You are a pushy bookish young man, Robert.  You know that?” I said, and I knew I was smiling as I said it.

I have lived in these so-called United States of America all my life.  What can I tell you?  I’ve actually lived in New York City all my life.  Fact is I’d just as soon not leave New York City at any time if I had my druthers.  The Bronx and Manhattan, that’s where I live, and have lived, and chose to live.  Lived in Jersey for a short while with Frances but didn’t really like it.  Who needs all those trees I say, just give me blacktop, brick, bright lights, and sidewalks.  Throw in a siren. There is no freer place on earth for me than walking down the streets of New York City.  Yes, son, New York, that’s my home.

As an adult I was certainly free to leave New York City and I clearly and definitively did not, notwithstanding the pain of the everyday and of our history.  I am a New Yorker, an American, and I tell any African who visits these shores that I am as proud of that fact as I am proud to be a Black man.

I was born in the summer of 1897, well before what these white people call World War One.  Funny how language, and those who shape the language, also shape and influence a people’s perception of reality.  I mean, thirty five to sixty million Africans were ripped from their homes and families and forced to live in the most horrific and degrading conditions for centuries, treated worst than dogs, owned and unfree, and that is called a “peculiar institution,” while fifty to sixty thousand young American white men die in foreign lands between 1914 and 1917 and it is called “the war to end all wars.”  I ask you.

My father James worked as an attendant at Grand Central Station for half a century.  Worked as hard and steady as any man who ever lived.  Loved his work, and loved bringing home his paycheck and putting it on the kitchen table for all to see.  “Honest week’s work.  Honest week’s wages.  Land of the free, home of the brave,” he would say.

His father had been a slave.  Now there’s a story there worth telling.  And my mother herself had been born a slave, although as a young child she and her mother were freed and came up to New York City.  Slavery has defined me, has defined our people, and has defined our country from the beginning.  When I was a boy we lived in the Bronx in an apartment my father rented way over by Pelham Parkway.  You can’t quite imagine what the Bronx was like nearly one hundred years ago.  But there were farmhouses still.  And people kept cows and chickens.  And if you were Black you lived in      .  And there were no public schools for colored children.  And I was born at home in my mother’s kitchen, with a hot tub of water on the floor, and my mother’s mother Rachel and the neighborhood midwife standing by.  No drugs.  No doctors.  No medicines.  No alcohol in that house.  Just my mother screaming, “Damn you, James, see if I ever let’s you touch me again.  Ever.”  Screaming and laughing and panting hard you know, and swearing things she never meant but in her times of urgency and birth.

I was a skinny runt of a kid.  Not an ounce of weight on me, when Ramsey found me.  Now Ramsey, there was a man’s man.  Just lived in that neighborhood, a quiet, never no nonsense man.  Had a little gym in the garage next to his house with some weight lifting equipment.  Inherited that house free and clear somehow.  Hardly ever employed.  Lived just to work out and exercise.  Loved to bring every kid in the neighborhood if he could into his garage and show them how to lift weights, do push ups, jump rope.
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Wesley Augustus Williams – from Wiki

Wesley Williams was a champion amateur weight lifter, and achieved a perfect score of 100% in the physical examination to enter the department. He was the one candidate of the 2,700 competing to score a 100% on the entrance physical examination and only the second man in the history of the department to gain a perfect score. Five years after entering the department in 1924, Williams won the heavyweight boxing championship at a weight of 185 lbs.

Williams was interviewed in 1976, when aged eighty, by Vulcan Society historian John L. Ruffins.^[5] Williams was a well-educated grammar school graduate. Following his retirement from the department on April 1, 1952, he remained as active in the business affairs and social life of Harlem. Williams recalled how appreciative he was to receive the letter from Fireman John Woodson a few days before he was appointed in 1919, and commented on how accurately Woodson had stated the facts and the problems he was to face.

Williams had been placed number 13 on the civil service list for appointment as Fireman, New York City Fire Department. Even with his exceptionally high standing on the civil service list it was necessary to present character references. Williams’ father was the head Red Cap at Grand Central Station and had developed a personal relationship with the Vanderbilts, the Goulds and the Morgans who were the owners of the railroads and passed through the terminal frequently. Those who signed character references for the young Wesley included former president Theodore Roosevelt. Williams claimed that a previous employer of his father, Mr. Thawley, a millionaire and a heavy contributor to Tammany Hall, was instrumental in letting the “powers that be” (including the fire commissioner and the chief of the department) know that Wesley Williams was in the fire department to stay.

Williams was assigned to Engine Company 55, located at 363 Broome Street, Manhattan, in a predominantly Italian section.^[6] When Williams reported for duty on January 10, 1919, the captain retired to avoid the stigma of being the captain of a company where a black fireman was to perform duty. In addition, each man in the company attempted to transfer, stating that they did not wish to work and sleep in the same firehouse with a black man.^[7] The department believed if any transfers were permitted, it would have been impossible to keep any fireman in the company, as a result all transfers were denied for at least one year.^[8] Fireman Williams was both ignored and ostracized and was given no direct instructions as to his duties or responsibilities. The company was now without a captain and five or six months passed before a replacement was assigned.

When attending his first major emergency, Fireman Williams was ordered to take the nozzle of the hose line down into the cellar. The rest of the company was behind him to assist in moving the hose and to back him up. After the company had moved into place in the smoky cellar a series of explosions occurred and flames rolled over the probationary fireman’s head in waves as he operated the nozzle and directed the stream. The company, including the officer, retreated to the street, leaving the probationary fireman in the cellar to extinguish the fire alone^{[9][citation needed]}. Battalion Chief Ben Parker, on discovering that the probationary man was still in the cellar, chastised the company and the officer for their actions. Fireman Williams established a reputation as a courageous fireman who would not back out in the face of adverse conditions.

Segregation within the fire department

The bed assigned to Wesley Williams was later to be the same bed assigned to any black fireman in any firehouse where he was assigned to perform duty. In Engine 55 it was the bed next to the toilet. No white fireman used the bed, even though the bed linen was changed after each man finished a night tour. This “black bed” became a source of bitter contention for many years in many firehouses.

Through his previous experience as a parcel post truck driver, Williams had become proficient in the operation of motor vehicles. It was at this point in the history of the department, horses were being replaced by two-wheel Christie tractors,^[11] thus motorizing both steamers and aerial trucks. An 84-hour work week came into being, a system that was to remain practically unchanged until 1939 when the three-platoon eight-hour plan was adopted. The shortage of firemen who possessed the mechanical ability to operate the new gasoline-driven tractors led to Williams being asked to take the apparatus out of quarters^[12] and then back it in. He executed the maneuver so expertly he was assigned as the apparatus driver. This assignment caused much resentment against Williams among the members of Engine 55^{[citation needed]}.

It prompted Assistant Chief of Department Patty Walsh to comment that “Of all the men in this Department, he (The Captain) had to pick that man to drive the apparatus!” Tradition dictated that the Motor Pump Operators should be the senior most experienced members of a fire company; the fact that Wesley Williams had little seniority, coupled with the fact that he was black, was not offset by the fact that he was the best qualified to operate the apparatus.

He did however have the run of the quarters, and found the roof to be unoccupied. There in the hose tower, where the wet hoses were hung after a fire he built a gym and kept a bookcase and this was where he spent his off hours exercising and studying fire manuals. The tower was quiet, it extended from above the firehouse roof to the cellar. It was in this small private gym that he continued his routine of physical fitness. An excellent swimmer, when uptown he spent time in the Harlem YMCA where he was schooled in the ‘Manly Arts’ by some of the sports best, old time prize fighters including Sam Langford, Joe Jeanette and Panama ‘Al’ Brown. When he was finally called to the cellar of engine co 55, it was not to discuss the merits of gloves vs knuckle. It was to settle a difference of opinion, in the then accepted manner. Whoever left the cellar first was vindicated. Having worked on the sand bag and punching bag until he was proficient led him to have an unfair advantage over the other firemen and having never failed to come out of the cellar first, the message was clear that he could box. In 1924 he entered the FDNY boxing tourney and became the heavyweight champ, only then was it revealed that he was a natural lefty and had a mean left hook that took everyone by surprise.^[7]

On Sunday morning, October 19, 1920, a year and ten months after Williams had entered the department, he was walking with his father on St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem on his way to work. As the two men passed 187 St. Nicholas Avenue they noticed Ladder Company 40 had responded to a fire and had already placed a portable ladder against the front of the fire building. As he and his father approached the building, flames could be seen licking out of the front windows and smoke was partially covering the front of the building. Ladder Company-40’s wooden hand-operated aerial ladder was being maneuvered into position against the building so that 19-year-old William Thomas, trapped at a window, could be rescued. After sizing up the situation, Williams ascended the ladder in an effort to assist. As the tip of the aerial ladder approached the panic stricken youth, he made a desperate lunge for it and was successful in grasping the ladder but his grip faltered. As he was beginning to fall, Fireman Williams leaped from the ladder he was standing on, caught the aerial ladder with one hand and the falling Thomas with the other, thus preventing his fall to the street. After carrying the young man to the street and safety, Williams re-ascended the ladder and assisted in the rescue of five other children. The rescue was witnessed by two reporters, and became the subject of an article entitled, “NY’s Only Colored Fireman Saves Six From Burning Building”.^[14]

When Fireman Williams reported to duty and recounted the rescue to his captain, the latter told him that it was in the line of duty and that he would not write it up for submission for a department citation. On another occasion, he and another fireman discovered a fire in a loft building at Spring and Lafayette Streets. Working together, they were able to rescue people from the burning building. Again the captain refused to forward a recommendation; however, the fireman who shared in the rescue reported the particulars to the captain of his company, Ladder 13, who ensured that he received recognition of the performance of an heroic act.

When Williams was promoted to lieutenant in 1927 he was assigned to the same Engine 55 where he had been a fireman, even though it was traditional to assign a newly appointed officer to a firehouse other than where he served as a fireman.^{[citation needed]} The original plan was to assign the first black officer to headquarters and give him a desk job but Lieutenant Williams strongly objected, saying, “I took orders from white officers; white firemen will have to learn to take orders from a colored officer.” The day Williams was promoted and assigned as an officer in Engine 55, Fireman John O’Toole walked out of the firehouse, an action that made him immediately AWOL.^{[citation needed]} When Lieutenant Williams admonished an officer for misconduct, charges had to be preferred against the fireman for failure to obey an order. A heavy fine was imposed by the trial commissioner, and the results of the trial were published in the Department Orders; this was official notification that when Lieutenant Williams, like any other officer, issued an order, it was to be obeyed. Seven years after his first promotion, Wesley Williams was promoted to captain in 1934.

Williams had become the company commander of the same firehouse he had entered 15 years ago. During his tour of duty in Engine 55 Wesley Williams had many near escapes in the area known as “Hell’s Hundred Acres”.^[15] Four years after his promotion to captain, Williams was again promoted, this time to Battalion Chief in 1938; he remained in the area because he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion on Mercer Street.