Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 9 December 2004 — Page 3

The Muncie Times • December 9, 2004 *Page 3

A 9-11 Black Firefighter Remembered

By Andre’ Scott On the corner of Brooklyn's Bergen Street and Rogers Avenue is a mural dedicated to Captain Vernon Allan Richard, of Manhattan's Ladder 7. At 2pm this Saturday afternoon there will be the unveiling of wall painting. Next to Capt. Richard, is an image of the World Trade Center Towers, and a picture of Carolyn Rodgers, who like Richard perished on September 11, 2001. She was what they call a civilian. "I just felt moved to paint the picture," artist Anthony Ewing told the Daily Challenge. He has works all over Brooklyn, including a painting of the Monroe Six, at Engine 235, Battalion 57 on Brooklyn's Monroe Street. Captain Paul Washington is the president of the Vulcan Society, the Black fraternal firefighters' group. He told the Daily Challenge that out of the 12 firefighters Black firefighters who died on 9-11, six were members of the Vulcan Society. Washington said that it will be a public event, with firefighters and families. "It is a memorial for somebody who truly was a hero, born and raised in Brooklyn, where most of his family still lives. He was a really positive person, who would always talk about what people could do, as opposed to what people as individuals or as a group could not do. He was just an all around great guy." Washington continued, "Anthony Ewing came to Vulcan Hall on Eastern Parkway just after 9-11. He saw the pictures of the 12 Black firefighters who had died and he painted them, and he just donated the picture to us." It is one sure thing

that can stop any one in their tracks - watching a firefighter rushing into a burning building, while they demand that onlookers, including residents, stay back. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two planes were flown into the World Trade Center. Just before they toppled, as people ran for their lives, firefighters took the stairs of the buildings that stood 110 stories high. Official numbers state that just fewer than 3,000 people died. Whatever the real politics behind the toppling of the World Trade Center Towers, more than thoughtprovoking is the image and reports of the members of the FDNY climbing stairs to rescue the thousands in buildings that were doomed to collapse. On a webpage dedicated to Richard, 13 year old Ryan Long wrote, "I am sorry that you lost your son Vernon Richard in the 9/11 attacks. I would have been afraid of saving those people knowing that I might die. He was a brave man that tried to save a lot of people." There are only 310 Black fighters out of the fire departments 11,500 members Washington said, that is going to prompt a big push come January 2005, for a city funded and organized recruitment drive within the Black community. Most of half of the Black fighters are members of the Vulcan Society in August 2002. The Vulcan Society filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They charged that the Fire Department had been engaging in discriminatory hiring and promoting practices against AfricanAmericans. Their reported $2 million dollar recruitment campaign, made not a dent

among the ranks of the city's almost 50% unemployed Black males - or Black females for that matter. Washington told the Challenge that Mayor Michael Bloombergand Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta is comfortable with the way things are. "We are going to start protesting on January 10 at City Hall," said Washington. "We will have a list of demands. We want the city to institute a $7 million cadet program. They used to do it, and we want it reinstated again, to bring in more Black people into the

fire department."

Just as Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge both resign; and as the 9/11

Commission, families who lost loved ones on that day, tussle with Congress about suggested reforms of the country's intelligence networks.

Yesterday

the city announced, almost every engine company with five firefighters per truck will now only

have four. Rebuked

by the union who said that any loss of manpowerparticularly in the winter season where more fires tend to occur, is a bad thing, the Fire Department said that they have no choice since 7.5 percent of their members are out on medical leave or restricted duties.

Washington told the paper, "There is a medical leave issue, but when you remove firefighters from trucks it is never good news that's for sure." Washington lost friends on 9-11, and he said that the Vulcan Society always reach out to the firefighter's families who lost someone. "Vernon Richard's family will be there on Saturday." That day is going to be a busy one for the Vulcans. Washington said that they are set to host a party for the "children from the Junious Street shelter for battered women. We do something every year for children who have been having a hard time, and we visit kids in hospital too. We are getting ready to do it all next

week. But first, we will be bringing 50 kids from the shelter, there will be games, clowns, Santa, and they will get a toy. It's always really nice. This is the first year that we will be taking kids from a shelter, we usually bring in local kids whose family life isn't as good as it could be. We've been doing it since 1999; and the Vulcan Society has been doing visiting kids in hospital for about 46 years. The Vulcan Society is 54 years old."

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