- Church & institution
- Segregation
- 1894–1962
- City of Atlanta
Butler Street YMCA: 'Black City Hall' and the first Black police
The Black YMCA, begun in 1894 in Wheat Street Baptist's basement, became a civic headquarters. From 1948 to 1953 Atlanta's first eight Black police officers worked from its basement, barred from arresting white people.
The record
Voter drives led by John Wesley Dobbs and A. T. Walden registered about 20,000 Black Atlantans between 1936 and 1946, and the two co-founded the Atlanta Negro Voters League (Wikipedia). That political weight helped win the April 1948 hiring of eight Black officers: Henry Hooks, Claude Dixon, Ernest H. Lyons, Robert McKibbens, Willard Strickland, Willie T. Elkins, Johnnie P. Jones and John Sanders. They could not arrest white citizens, drive patrol cars or report to the main station, and they patrolled only Black neighborhoods from a precinct in the YMCA basement (Atlanta History Center). The precinct closed in 1953, and Black officers did not gain full authority to arrest white people until 1962.
Today: The Butler Street YMCA building on Jesse Hill Jr. Dr.