Ronald Caldwell was in middle school the first time he saw an African American firefighter. That person was Floyd White Sr., whizzing by on a Fresno firetruck.
“He waved,” Caldwell recalled. “It was a very beautiful thing.”
White was also Caldwell’s Little League Baseball coach. Learning he was a firefighter made him an even more inspiring figure.
Caldwell would become the Fresno Fire Department’s third black firefighter – hired 21 years after its first two, brothers Floyd and Jim White in 1954.
White died April 1, 2020, at the age of 90 from Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder that causes dementia. He leaves behind family and friends who remember him fondly as a helper and trailblazer.
White retired from the Fresno Fire Department as first assistant chief, a now-gone rank that’s akin to a deputy chief today. He was the first black person to become a fire chief in the central San Joaquin Valley city.
Fresno Fire Chief Kerri Donis shared her condolences with his family.
“Floyd White Sr. rose through the ranks of the Fresno Fire Department,” Donis said, “leading change in the organization throughout his 25-year career.”
That change wasn’t without challenge. White filed a lawsuit in the 1970s against the Fresno Fire Department while working as a fire investigator, alleging discrimination in promotion and hiring practices. The city settled the lawsuit in 1979 after the civil-rights division of the federal Office of Revenue Sharing conducted an investigation of its own alleging the same and threatened to withhold federal funds from Fresno.
“We all feel like he is like the greatest man that ever lived because of the sacrifice he made,” his daughter Jennifer White said. “It was a big deal for an African American to sue a city, are you kidding me. It affected all of us to a certain degree, and he knew if he didn’t do that, that others would suffer.”
Inspiring future firefighters
Caldwell and another black firefighter were hired in the mid-’70s, making them the department’s third and fourth black firefighters ever.
Caldwell said he knows it must have been hard for White when he started, but that sometimes it felt even harder for him in those early years, not long after the civil-rights movement ended. He slept with “one eye open and one eye closed” in a fire station run by men who Caldwell said didn’t allow his mother or White to step inside when they dropped by to check on him.
Outside the station, White would encourage him.
“He said, ‘Keep your head up, be strong, you can make it,’” Caldwell said. “It was tough. It was really tough.”
Caldwell retired from the department 36 years later as a fire captain. During his career, he saw the department appoint its first African American head fire chief, Michael Smith, who served in that top position from 1994 to 2003.
David Woodard, another retired Fresno fire captain who is black, was also inspired by White.
“He opened doors for people,” Woodard said. “He opened doors for me.”
Carlton Jones – a black Fresno Fire engineer, former president of the local firefighters’ union, and a Tulare city councilman – is among many who are grateful for the path White blazed before him.
“I love this profession,” Jones said of firefighting. “I love it with all my heart. There’s nothing I wanted to do more from the time I was 5 years old. … Floyd made that dream possible.”
Jones and other fire officials said they are working to get more minorities to become firefighters in Fresno. The department has no Hmong firefighters, Jones said, although the city’s Hmong population is large, and there are just 12 African American firefighters in Fresno today out of nearly 300 sworn personnel (firefighters vs. office support staff).
There are even fewer female firefighters in the city – a dwindling number the department also wants to see increase.
“We’ve come a long way,” Jones said, “but we’ve still got a long way to go.”
Discrimination lawsuit in Fresno
White’s discrimination lawsuit was settled during a closed-door executive session of the Fresno City Council. A U.S. District judge approved the agreement, with the condition the federal Office of Revenue Sharing halt its investigation into the discrimination case, The Fresno Bee reported in May 1979.
White was awarded about three years of back pay – the difference in salary between fire inspector and a fire chief – along with attorney fees. The agreement included that he retire in August of that year. He was promoted to second assistant chief in the meantime, and first assistant chief on the day he retired.
The city at that time said the settlement did not include any admission of wrongdoing or discrimination.
The previous year, federal officials told the city it could lose about $4 million a year in federal revenue sharing if it didn’t change its ways.
Caldwell said he’s glad White went forward with his lawsuit.
“I’m not prejudiced or anything, but sometimes it was tough back in the day for blacks to get on any position in the city of Fresno,” Caldwell said, “and that was one of the departments (the fire department) in the city of Fresno that was very hard. … It was a white boys’ job at that time.”
‘He loved everyone’
There wasn’t much retiring happening during White’s retirement from the Fresno Fire Department. White owned an automotive wrecking business, and also went on to work as a prison correctional officer, Greyhound bus driver, and substitute teacher, along with building and renting out homes. That was on top of staying active in community groups and his church, Saint Rest Baptist Church.
In his younger days, he was a U.S. Army sergeant in the Korean War. As a child, he came to Fresno from Oklahoma with his family, and was a football and track star at Edison High School and Fresno City College.
As an elder, Pastor D.J. Criner of Saint Rest remembers White as a constant “helper.” White never turned down someone in need, Criner said, whether that be picking up hitchhikers, fixing cars, or driving around town handing out bottles of water to people he saw on the street.
Criner compared him to a Christ figure, Mother Teresa, a modern-day Martin Luther King Jr., and the Jackie Robinson of West Fresno – where White’s family still lives.
“He never wanted anyone to be treated different because of the color of their skin,” Criner said. “He loved everyone.”
In his social-justice work and advocacy, Criner said, White helped blacks and whites work together in a “true professional setting,” and that he bridged a gap and gave blacks “a voice and a seat at the table.”
White’s daughter Jennifer said her father’s legacy is “equality, social justice for all, fair and higher education for all, fair employment for all.”
“That’s what he always wanted for everyone,” she said, “not just our community, but for all communities.”
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