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Updated: 1:23 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011 | Posted: 10:51 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011
By Lucas Sullivan
Staff Writer
DAYTON — Hundreds of cities across the country have struggled to diversify their fire departments.
Columbus has 175 black firefighters out of a staff of 1,549. Akron has 57 blacks out of 344. In Cincinnati, which settled a diversity lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice, 250 of 850 firefighters in 2009 were black.
But it’s hard to find any major city with fewer black firefighters than Dayton. In a city with an estimated 62,000 black residents, just six of 300 firefighters are black, and one of those is Chief Herbert Redden.
This lack of diversity, which has worsened during the last 20 years, is one of the reasons the Justice Department forced the city to overhaul its recruitment, testing and hiring process.
The city will soon learn how effective that overhaul will be.
Monday is the deadline to apply to be a Dayton firefighter, marking an important step in the city’s ability to answer terms of the DOJ settlement.
Two significant changes should make diversifying the staff a little easier. As a result of the DOJ lawsuit, the city has abandoned its requirement that all applicants be certified firefighters. Also, the city no longer has a residency rule, which should greatly increase the pool of available black candidates.
The situation may not get better anytime soon, however. Dayton has an usually large number of retirees this year, and a new firefighter class won’t likely be in operation until late spring 2012. The city can’t hire firefighters until the Justice Department reviews the applications and approves the results of the April 2 civil service exam.
Michael Spencer, 41, one of the city’s few black firefighters, said he walked away from a successful accounting career at Miami Valley Hospital nearly 10 years ago because he felt a sense of duty.
But Spencer said more young blacks need to heed that call.
“I think (diversity) is important because we need to reflect the community we serve,” said Spencer, a member of Company 18 on South Smithville Road. “It helps build relationships and also trust. And it’s a way for African-Americans to become good examples in their community.”
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