Title supplied by cataloger. Rolland Joseph 'Speedy' Curtis was born in Louisiana in 1922. After serving three years in the Marines during World War II, he and his wife, Gloria, relocated from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1946. Curtis served four years with the Los Angeles Police Department, but resigned from the force in order to pursue both a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from USC. He later became involved in city politics, as an associate of Sam Yorty, and later a field deputy to City Council members Billy Mills and Tom Bradley. He was briefly director of the Model Cities program in 1973. Rolland J. Curtis died in his home in 1979, the victim of a homicide. An affordable housing complex on Exposition Blvd. near Vermont Ave. was named in his honor in 1981, along with a nearby street and park.; Elected in 1963, Billy G. Mills (1929-) was the third African American to serve on the Los Angeles City Council, a seat he held until 1974 when he became a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. He was the first African American chairman of the Democratic County Central Committee, winning over fellow Councilman Tom Bradley by just three votes.; Arnett Hartsfield, Jr. was a Serviceman, Firefighter, Instructor and while employed as a firefighter, became an attorney to continue to work against injustice and inequality. Hartsfield was appointed to the LAFD in 1940 and served for 20 years. He worked at Station 30 in East Los Angeles. While firefighting, he used his GI Bill to go back to school and attend both UCLA and USC and earned a law degree in 1955. That same year, Los Angeles Fire Department firefighters received the notice to desegregate all of the fire houses. Hartsfield, who had been a firefighter for 15 years and had just passed the bar exam, was the first to join a white station in order to begin desegregation. He recalled, "the captain met me at the door and gave me a direct order never to enter the kitchen when the white firemen were eating, to use my own pots and pans and to shower only when no whites were using the washroom. I was already an attorney, and every day I came to work and scrubbed toilets." Arnett Hartsfield, Jr. retired in 1961 to practice law fulltime. Councilmember Billy Mills (at left) is pictured with attorney Arnett Hartsfield Jr., a former fire fighter of over 20 years, who played a significant role in integrating the Los Angeles Fire Department. The event and location where the men are photographed is not known and no further information has been given. Event occured circa 1971. See images 00138120 through 00138124 for additional photos in this series.
Type
image
Format
1 negative : safety ; 10 x 13 cm. Photographic safety negatives
Mills, Billy G Hartsfield, Arnett City council members African American politicians African American lawyers African American fire fighters African American men Men Handshaking Los Angeles (Calif.)
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