"Samuel Jesse Battle"(January 16, 1883-August 7,1966)

Wat the first black police officer in the city of Brooklyn,later New York City.After attending

segregated schools in North Carolina.Samuel moved north,first to Connecticut,then to New York City,where he took a job as a train porter and began studying for the New York City Police Department Civil service exam. He was sworn in on March 6,1911.His brother-in-law was Patrolman Moses P. Cobb,who started working for the Brooklyn Police force in the early 1890s before the unification of NYU and acted as Battle's mentor."Big Sam as he was known-63"/280 pounds earned the respect of his fellow Officers after saving ones life in the early 1920s.They subsequently voted to allow him into the Sargent's academy As the NYPD's first black Lieutenant,during the intense Harlem Riots of 1935-after 3 days of violence he circulated fliers of himself with the young boy smiling who had allegedly been murdered in the basement of the Kress Department Store.He joined the force in 1911,assigned first to San Juan Hill,neighborhood where Lincoln Center is today,which preceded Harlem as one of the key African American neighborhoods in Manhattan.He was soon moved to Harlem as the African American population there grew.He would later become the first African-American police sergeant (1926) lieutenant (1935) and the first African American commisoner (1941).In 1941,He began work as a parole commisoner,working with delinquent youths in Harlem.He rehabilitation programs,such as summer camps and sports activities for the youth of Harlem.During a 1943 race riot,trigged by the shooting of an African American suspect by a white police officer,Samuel at the request of New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, was called in to to quell the Harlem area where the riot erupted.Samuel retired as parole commissoner in 1951 but remained active in community activities for the Harlem area.