If the St. Louis American were to follow TIME magazine and select a local Person of the Year, the definitive newsmaker for 2007, without question our choice would be demoted Fire Chief Sherman George.
Surely our readers know his story by now.
The City’s first black fire chief, Sherman George was undermined by his boss, Public Safety Director Sam Simon, and by the white-dominated Firefighters Local 73. Though issues of race played a role in George’s tenure from the beginning, his leadership began to face active resistance when he refused to make promotions to captain and battalion chief based on a 2004 promotions list.
George had advised the City against hiring the firm whose testing produced the list. From the outset, he informed his boss (who was then William Duffe) and Mayor Francis G. Slay that he wouldn’t trust the results of their test. The firm, EBJacobs, produced a promotions list that hugely favored white firefighters. The Firefighters Institute for Racial Equality, a black fraternal organization, also filed claims of cheating that the City never investigated.
Though George always based his objections to the 2004 list on public safety and the proper approach to testing his department, Slay made race the issue. Slay insistently conflated George’s resistance to promotion with FIRE’s suit against the City, when the two issues were distinct. In fact, George sued the City himself, on different grounds, and a judge ruled that it was the chief’s sole discretion to promote – or not promote – as per the City Charter.
Slay’s handling of George set fire to the black community when Slay appointed another black man with dubious qualifications, Charles Bryson, to enforce a threat of disciplinary action that had been set by Simon before Simon abruptly and mysteriously resigned. Slay was widely seen in the black community as promoting an unqualified and compliant black man (Bryson) to demote a highly qualified and independent black man (George). This newspaper was far from alone in judging this to be a point of no return for the Slay administration.
Throughout the crisis, George presented himself as the same dignified gentleman who had earned almost universal respect throughout the metropolitan area, and not only among black folks. Indeed, the leadership of Local 73 and George’s superiors in the Slay administration seem to be the only people willing to say anything negative about the man. One can see why. George was raised poor – he actually picked cotton as a child in the segregated Bootheel. He served honorably in Vietnam. He worked and studied his way up the ranks in the fire service, never receiving any discipline before his demotion. And he was an exemplary leader of his department, which improved its record for public safety under his command.
Many people have had to wonder, as this leadership crisis unfolded under Slay, “Who in their right mind would find it impossible to work constructively with Sherman George?”
This has amplified Slay’s problems and created a genuine opportunity for civic leaders and elected officials who now are convinced that Slay is not sufficiently sensitive and skilled to run a majority-black city with the racial problems that beset St. Louis. Slay has, in effect, created a very compelling martyr for the black community. Indeed, he has created a martyr for anyone in St. Louis who is determined to see this area finally begin to progress beyond a stifling climate of divisive racial politics.
George still deserves individual justice, and he has sued the City for racial discrimination and illegal job action. But, above all, the community needs better – more inclusive, sensitive, cooperative and far-sighted – leadership. That is what we all must be working toward in 2008.