Kansas City Fire Station 35 holds a prominent position along a stretch of winding thoroughfare named in honor of the city’s first Black mayor.

The glass and paneled concrete firehouse at 3200 Emanuel Cleaver II Blvd. is the second-largest in the city. It was state of the art when it opened in 2009 and sits in the middle of a densely populated ZIP code where more than 88% of the population is Black.

Yet somehow, only one of the 45 firefighters assigned there in July was Black.

At Station 23, nicknamed “The Avenue” for its address in the Old Northeast at 4777 Independence Ave., almost all of the firefighters were white even though most of the neighborhood is not. The station is surrounded by Asian, Hispanic, immigrant and Black communities.

Across the city a similar pattern prevails, according to a review of Kansas City Fire Department data. Of the city’s 33 fire stations, more than 10 were much whiter than the populations surrounding them. Almost half of the city’s fire crews have no Black firefighters, who are mostly clustered on a handful of shifts.

It didn’t happen by accident.

A year-long investigation by The Star found segregation in the fire department has endured for decades, governed by unwritten rules and tolerated by city leaders and top fire officials. Interviews with dozens of firefighters, hundreds of pages of court documents, and an analysis of city data show the city’s firefighting crews are divided by racial discrimination and do not look like the communities they serve.

In a city that is 30 percent Black, only 14 percent of its firefighters are.

White firefighter crews dominate majority Black neighborhoods in the inner city, which are the most desired places to work because they are the busiest. That means more experience for the firefighters, which in turn means better opportunities for promotion, higher pay and increased status.

Black firefighters often end up working in sleepier stations that answer fewer calls for service. That means fewer opportunities to advance into management. Another result: Black communities don’t see their fire stations staffed by people who look like them.

Black firefighters have told The Star and testified in court that the segregation is maintained by a longstanding practice of rigging station assignments — a system tolerated by cozy relations between the union, the fire administration and City Hall — that is enforced in firehouses through harassment and intimidation.

High-ranking fire officials — and even city leaders — have acknowledged the segregation and barriers to mobility for Black firefighters, but shrugged it off or blamed it on the department’s contract with the labor union representing most firefighters, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 42.

Councilwoman Melissa Robinson described the segregation — and broader discrimination in the department — as overwhelming.

“Which century are we in?” she said. “That’s kind of how it struck me. What are we really doing?”

In interviews with The Star, KCFD officials and union leaders acknowledged the department’s history of racism and segregation. Tim Dupin, president of Local 42, said the union is working to build bridges with Black community groups. Chief Donna Lake, the city’s first woman fire chief, said the department is working to increase opportunities for Black firefighters.

“This is the way structural racism kind of works,” said Theodore R. Johnson, a senior fellow at Brennan Center for Justice who specializes in issues of race and electoral politics. “It is all of those social capital connections that led to professional opportunities that then put those folks on the path to leadership, more money and more promotion.”

“Meanwhile, it excludes folks who don’t have that social capital, not because those in charge hate black or brown people but because they are looking out for those who are like them instead of opening the field for everyone to compete on a level playing field.”

Harassment and intimidation

Greg Patton said he and fellow Black firefighters know that some parts of town are off limits.

Patton has only been on the job a few years and said he has learned that Black firefighters often can’t get into heavily-white stations in the urban core. As a result, many find themselves working with predominantly Black crews where they say they feel more secure and avoid harassment.

Patton said he hadn’t tried to bid into busy, predominately white stations, such as 10, 18 or 23.

“You gotta know somebody to get that seat,” Patton said. “I know how it is....I haven’t tried to bid none of those spots because I already know how it is.

“And if you do bid the station that you want to be and they don’t want you there, you know...that 24 hours will not be delightful at all.”

Black firefighters who manage to acquire spots in busier, mostly white fire stations said they are often ostracized and become targets for mistreatment.

White firefighters won’t talk to them, eat with them or eat the food they prepare, in hopes they will leave voluntarily.

Their fire equipment is vandalized, and sometimes air is emptied from their oxygen tanks.

One Black firefighter said he worked at a fire station for almost a year before his fellow firefighters uttered a word to him.

“I would pull up to the station parking lot and sit in my truck for several minutes before I gathered enough to get out and go inside,” said the firefighter, who asked that he not be identified because he feared retaliation from white co-workers.

For a Black firefighter, suffering racial slurs becomes a regular occupational hazard.

When he was a brand new firefighter at Station 7 at 616 West Pennway on the West Side, Patton said, people he gave emergency medical treatment to frequently called him the n-word.

One day, he told his captain, who dismissed the complaint.

“The only answer I got to that was, ‘You’ve never been called that before?’ And I’m like, ‘No,’” Patton recalled. “‘I haven’t, like not until I got on this job.’

“It’s just a different culture down there,” Patton said. “Certain stations in certain areas ... are not for us.”

Konsta Myrick, a Black fire captain who is also a business agent for Local 42, said Black firefighters who have been victimized by racist behavior need to stand up and the fire department needs to do a better job encouraging them to do so.

“You need to get over the mentality that you’re gonna be a target,” Myrick said. “And if you feel you’re disenfranchised, then you need to step up and say something.”

But it’s no small matter for a Black firefighter to anger white colleagues by complaining, said Addington Stewart, a retired St. Louis firefighter who recently led the International Association of Black Professional Fire Fighters.

Many Black firefighters suffer in silence and do not report blatant racial discrimination or harassment. They fear retaliation or severe repercussions, Stewart said.

“They are supposed to be able to depend on each other for their lives,” Stewart said. “All they have got to do is make an example of one person. Then make it clear to you that this is going to happen to you if you speak out.

“The Blacks that have challenged their system are stymied in their careers in Kansas City.”

Nearly a dozen current Black firefighters declined to comment for this story because of that fear of retaliation.

Darrell Higginbottom, a fire captain and president of the Boston Society of Vulcans, a Black firefighter advocacy group, said he and his colleagues have faced discrimination and segregation for years. In fact, the problem has become worse.

He said the difference is clear on the rare occasion when a mostly Black fire crew arrives in a Black community.

“We have a connection to our own community and when we pull up to a scene in our community and they see a fire truck with all Black brothers and sisters on there, they are almost in awe because they have never seen it before or we stand out,” he said.

“Now you are showing a young brother or sister that first this is a job that you can have and being a firefighter is a prestigious job in all communities. You are showing us in a favorable light.”

By contrast, he said, white firefighters lack an emotional investment in the communities of color where they serve and are more likely to use aggressive tactics that cause more property damage.

“They are not there because ‘I want to help the Black community,’” he said. “They are there because ‘I could catch more fires in those communities.’”

Trades, bids and bumps

Firefighters and KCFD leadership keep Black firefighters out of the more desirable fire stations in the urban core via a “bids and trades system” supported by a code of unwritten rules.

The system, created by generations of white, male firefighters, controls which firefighters can work in which stations.

The unwritten rules exist underneath official fire department policies. Together, they allow firefighters to be posted to stations through “bidding,” “trading,” “bumping” or direct assignment by superiors.

Here’s how it works:

Officially, when a vacancy opens up at a fire station, it is posted for any firefighter to “bid” on, or apply for. Under the firefighters’ union contract, the assignment is supposed to go to the applicant with the most seniority.

On paper, the process is colorblind. But that’s not how it goes in reality, according to Black firefighters and court testimony.

The unwritten rules say the firefighter must call the captain in charge of that position and ask permission to bid on it.

The captain sometimes discourages a Black firefighter from bidding on the job. It could be because they have someone else in mind: a buddy’s kid, a relative, or a white guy, according to Black firefighters who are familiar with the system.

To keep a desirable post from becoming available in the first place, white firefighters about to be promoted and transferred often “trade” the post with another white firefighter at a less desirable station.

That prevents the post from being available for bid to a Black firefighter with seniority.

Both the bid and trade functions allow fire captains to essentially hand-pick their crews.

“I think you have a culture of white male privilege and white males having benefit of the system,” said Erin Vernon, an attorney who has successfully represented women and Black firefighters in discrimination and retaliation claims against the Kansas City Fire Department.

“This is where fathers, sons, grandsons; generation after generation — family members who are white males that have been taken under their wings and are getting promoted up the chain,” Vernon said.

Even if a new firefighter gets placed in an open position at a sought-after station and doesn’t want to give it up, a firefighter with more seniority can “bump” them out of it.

Failing to secure a spot in one of the busier fire stations can hurt a Black firefighter’s career prospects and earning potential, said Travis Yeargans, a Black Kansas City firefighter who retired from the service after 23 years and is now lead pastor of River’s Edge Fellowship in east Kansas City.

“Most of them (Black firefighters) are affected by the lack of real world experience,” Yeargans said.

In a sworn deposition and court testimony in June 2017 and again in an interview with The Star this fall, former Fire Chief Paul Berardi acknowledged he was aware stations remain highly segregated.

Berardi, who is now chief of a small department in the Ozarks, told The Star he didn’t have a good answer as to why segregation persisted in the department. He claimed he had stopped captains from telling firefighters not to bid for open spots.

Berardi insisted the system works primarily on seniority and said his predecessors tried to reduce trades, but firefighters found a way to work with who they wanted.

“There are a number of reasons (to trade), and not all of them are good reasons,” Berardi said. “I don’t think that it’s intentionally done to segregate, but I do believe that is the end result ... sometimes.”

Chief Lake said the unions know her position: if she could do away with trades tomorrow, she would.

And she said KCFD, like departments across the country, has to combat its members’ resistance to progress.

“We’ve had some antiquated practices that are not in the (contract) … that are just kind of that cultural, old school thought process of, ‘I’m in charge at this station and so I want to have a say in who’s working at my station,’” Lake said. “And, you know, that’s, that’s not 2020.”

In a December 2019 deposition for a discrimination lawsuit, former city manager Troy Schulte said he was concerned about discrimination in the fire department.

Schulte, who has since gone on to become the Jackson County administrator, said it was his goal for the department’s demographics to reflect the community.

Vernon, the plaintiff’s attorney, asked: “Were you ever made aware of any racially — or any issues with firehouses or shifts being racially segregated?”

“No,” Schulte said. “Other than there was some — there was some chatter about certain stations (being) primarily the minority stations.”

Schulte said he would occasionally ask fire department management if segregation was a real issue. Management, he said, reported that it occurred as a result of “seniority bid shift choice.”

“That occasionally would pop up in the chatter, but again, it was never one that we pursued beyond just general conversations.”

What a segregated fire station looks like

At Station 25, the green, white, and red colors of the Italian flag are featured on a mailbox and bollards outside the station.

That’s because the station sits in the city’s historic Columbus Park neighborhood, where Italian immigrants settled more than a century ago. Union leaders say the tradition has passed along from generation to generation.

But today the ZIP code around Station 25 is 45% Black, according to the 2018 American Community Survey. And only two of its firefighters are Black, out of a staff of 39.

Indeed, while Station 25 and the Irish-themed Station 19 in Westport celebrate the KCFD’s history of filling its ranks from surrounding communities, the same has not happened for Black Kansas Citians.

Instead, Black firefighters tend to gather on particular shifts, or under a Black supervisor, for safety.

One such shift could be found at Station 29 at 63rd Street and The Paseo, where a mostly white fire station serves a much more diverse neighborhood.

Of three shifts on the station’s schedule, one counts seven Black firefighters out of 13. It’s one of the largest numbers of Black firefighters assigned to a particular shift in the entire city.

In a similar arrangement, a shift at Station 41 at 93rd Street and Hillcrest Road has seven Black firefighters out of 12.

“Black captains tend to draw Black firefighters to the stations they supervise,” said former Deputy Fire Chief James Garrett. “Some of the Black firefighters may like that since they don’t experience racism or harassment there at those fire stations.”

In the urban core, fire stations dominated by white firefighters in mostly-Black neighborhoods throw the segregation into stark relief.

Station 18 at 32nd Street and Indiana Avenue is in an 80% Black ZIP code and sits across the street from Central High School, whose student population is 90% Black.

Yet only three Black firefighters are assigned to Station 18, and all are assigned to a single shift.

The Star’s analysis shows that over the past decade, 167 of the 199 firefighters who have worked at that fire house were white.

Catina Taylor, a neighborhood leader in Blue Hills, said she wished she had known about the segregation of Kansas City’s fire stations this spring when Lake sought the group’s support for a tax hike voters approved in June.

“Nothing is going to change unless it is addressed. Equity still needs to take place in that space,” Taylor said.

“So the problem is, this shit ain’t right.”

Back at “The Avenue” — Station 23 in the Old Northeast — only three Black firefighters were counted out of 182 who worked there during the past 10 years. All 23 of the fire captains were white.

On The Paseo, Station 17 is located in a ZIP code that is 54% Black but only two Black firefighters are assigned there. Since 2010, 250 of the 293 firefighters at the station have been white.

Yeargans, a retired Black firefighter, recalled a conversation with a white firefighter at that station who said the poor, Black residents who lived in the surrounding community “need to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps, kind of like I did.”

Yeargans paused for a moment before he responded.

”I said ‘wait a minute, dude, you’re here because of nepotism. You know, I mean you didn’t pick yourself up by your bootstraps. You are basically handed this job because of your dad.’”

The white firefighter took offense.

“And I said, ‘so do you expect your son to get on this job if he wants to?’” Yeargans continued.

“He said, ‘Yeah, I expect him to.’”

Firefighters don’t reflect the neighborhood

When Myrick, the Black fire captain and union official, grew up near 75th Street and Prospect Avenue, there weren’t many Black firefighters around.

There still aren’t: Only three out of 20 at Station 30.

That’s one reason why he relished a recent opportunity to work there temporarily. It gave him a chance to be a visible role model who could inspire neighborhood children.

“It meant a lot to be back in the old neighborhood,” he said. “It was very nostalgic, and also to me it was very meaningful considering where I grew up and where I came from and being able to provide that service back to the community.”

Myrick said before the coronavirus pandemic, he and other fire crews frequently conducted demonstrations at elementary schools or community centers. They allowed school children to climb inside the fire truck, try on helmets, ask questions about the equipment.

Children watched fire crews spray streams of water from the giant fire hoses, he said.

“I’ve been able to give back to the community in many ways and also to inspire young people coming up,” Myrick said. “Just giving them a face, a familiar face to put with this profession and let them know that this is something that you can do too.”

That’s what’s missing in neighborhoods across the city, say neighborhood leaders, city officials, Black firefighters and experts.

Across the board, fire, union and City Hall officials say they think a department works best when it represents the community it serves. And recruiting and retaining a more diverse department, they hope, will resolve some of the long-standing cultural problems among firefighters.

That community interaction doesn’t happen at Station 24, said Jay Brawley, who lives nearby.

Neighborhood kids gather in front of the station, 2039 Hardesty Ave. because of the pop machine that dispenses cold cans for 50 cents.

The neighborhood is only one-quarter white. But the fire crew is nearly all white.

Brawley, 71, said the crew never comes outside to visit with the kids.

Having more Black firefighters at the station, he said, would allow them to serve as role models for neighborhood children.

First-responders such as firefighters have an elevated status in the community and are highly respected, he said.

“If you interact with those in the neighborhood, you get to know the people better,” he said. “Then that’s good for everybody.”

Read the other two parts in the series, examining racial and sexual harassment in the Kansas City Fire Department and how the upper ranks of the department remain overwhelmingly white.

This story was originally published December 6, 2020 at 5:00 AM.

Glenn E. Rice

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4341

Glenn E. Rice is an investigative reporter who focuses on law enforcement and the legal system. He has been with The Star since 1988. In 2020 Rice helped investigate discrimination and structural racism that went unchecked for decades inside the Kansas City Fire Department.