LEGL 4500/6500 - Employment Law

Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander, Esq.

Terry College of Business

Carrollton, Ga - When he moved from one station to another, firefighter Henry Manley said he forced to take his bed with him, because of the color of his skin.

Mr. Manley, a Carrollton firefighter for 10 years, is one of four blacks whose complaints led to the resignation this week of Chief L.A. Dukes Jr., who is accused of requiring that fire stations set aside beds for blacks only so that white firefighters working other shifts wouldn’t have to use them.

"This is the bed that follows Henry around," Mr. Manley said Friday as he showed his visitors into the open bay sleeping quarters at Fire Station C- "the one they made me move with me from station to station, three times in 10 years."

His tone was humorous, but he complaint was serious.

"We kidded Henry about putting a trailer hitch on his bed, but you could tell he was hurt," said Danny Beard, a white firefighter who joined in the complaint.

The resignation of the 53-year-old Mr. Dukes, a 28-year fire department veteran and chief for 10 years, followed four months of complaints and an investigation by city officials into charges that he committed blatant discrimination against blacks on the 36-member fire department.

Mr. Beard said Friday that Mr. Dukes had complained in his presence and used a racial slur when Mr. Manley was transferred to Station C, becoming the second black firefighter: He had asked, "Where will we put him? We only got one [black] bed," Mr. Beard said.

Mr. Manley also was joined in the February complaint by three other black firefighters - Capt. Michael Pinkard, Billy Henderson and Ronnie Caldwell.

Mr. Dukes was on a fishing trip Friday at West Point Lake, said his son, Chris, and could not be reached for comment. He said his father has been under stress and didn’t sleep the night he left his job.

"We think it’s bet for him. All his family does," Chris Dukes said. "My dad’s quiet. He wouldn’t say anything to us about it. He kept everything inside, and that’s why we wanted him to leave. It’s a terrible thing; 10 more years he could retire."

Mr. Manley said his difference with Mr. Dukes dated to his earliest days on the department, when he wrecked a fire truck while answering a call in a rainstorm, and after a complaint he filed in 1986 when he and Mr. Pinkard were passed over for promotion in favor or whites with less seniority. He said Mr. Dukes "just lost it over the accident and said that he didn’t want a [black] ever driving his fire trucks.

"It is 1990 now, and I wonder - why do we still seem to be living in the ‘60’s?" said Mr. Manley, a state fire instructor who is also trained as an emergency medical instructor. "I’ve lived in Carrollton all my life. Everyone knows me, knows my family. I don’t think they really believe they’ll get leprosy if the rub up against me."

Mr. Manley said he and his colleagues hired a lawyer earlier but said they don’t plan to sue.

"We’re human. We can be talked to, and we don’t want to be known as the ‘bad boys of Carrollton.’ I don’t want any money out of this; that isn’t what we are after. I just wanted to bring the public what’s been happening. I wanted the truth told."

Black and white firefighters contended the controversy had not affected the department’s response or effectiveness. "When it comes time to fight fires, we fight fires," Mr. Beard said.

Carrollton City Manager Dudley Crosson said Mr. Dukes’s resignation from his $33,000-a-year job was "mutually agreed upon" after meetings by city officials over the past two months with protesting firefighters and black community leaders.

Mr. Crosson refused to disclose whether Mr. Dukes was asked to resign, or to detail the controversy. But he acknowledged "there’s no question that he had transferred a fireman to a new station and was going to move his bed. Don’t ask me why people do the things they do.

"But I won’t take a fellow that’s been with me for 28 years and throw him in the street," Mr. Crosson added. He said the former chief had taken a 90-day leave before taking a new job as a maintenance mechanic with the city.
 
 
 
 

The Atlanta Journal & Constitution, June 9, 1990