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Eugene Curry, 53, one of the city's first black firefighters, died Sunday after suffering a seizure in early December.
By CRAIG BASSE, Times Obituaries Editor
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 8, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG -- On a March day some three decades ago, Eugene Curry reported for duty at Station 3 of the St. Petersburg Fire Department. Along with another new firefighter, Alphonso Brown, he was making history.
The two young men, both military veterans, were the city's first African-American firefighters, but neither found a warm welcome in the all-white fire houses.
They broke a color barrier that had existed for 70 years, and within a few months, 10 black firefighters were answering calls in the city.
Brown, now a captain commanding Station 10, said Tuesday: "We thought we could change things.
"It was clear to us that no blacks had ever been hired. My point of view was why not do that? It was time for a change. I didn't think it was a major issue for me. I had spent years in the Marine Corps and Eugene had come out of the Navy. So we didn't feel it was that much of an issue."
Mr. Curry, who retired Jan. 17, 2001 and later underwent brain surgery, died Sunday (Jan. 5, 2003) at Mariner Health of Pinellas Point. He was 53 and had been treated at Bayfront Medical Center after a seizure in early December, his brother Willie said.
The employment of Mr. Curry and Brown came 23 years after the city hired its first black police officers. But those officers were permitted to patrol only predominantly black areas and were instructed to call a white officer when they arrested a white person.
In 1968, responding to a lawsuit filed by a dozen African-American officers, a federal judge ordered the police department to stop discriminating.
At age 21, Mr. Curry was accepted in the Public Safety Officer Training program, which introduced him to police and fire work.
"He was so glad that he joined the fire department," said Irene Scott, an aunt with whom he recently lived. "He said it was the best thing he had ever done. It was a good job. It was the best job he ever had."
But he was not welcomed by white firefighters, she said.
"He was treated badly," his aunt said. "A lot of time they didn't want to eat with him."
Sometimes when he was watching television, the white firefighters would leave the room, she said.
"But he kept on. He kept on. He said he wasn't going to quit."
One time, though, he confided to his mother Mable that he thought often about quitting because life at the station was so difficult, his brother said.
"But he hung in there and stuck it out," his brother said.
In those early days, Mr. Curry once recalled, he might hear a racial slur in another room but not be able to hear who made it. A few co-workers would not talk to him. But he said he never thought a fellow firefighter would refuse to snatch him out of danger.
"I never felt a guy hated my guts so much he wouldn't help me," he said in a 1985 interview.
With firefighters spending so much time together, Mr. Curry saw station life "just like family... One day you might not be able to stand each other; the next day, everything's fine."
Sometimes firefighters had too much time on their hands and would start to get on each other's nerves, he said. "A good working fire will keep a company together."
The hostile behavior by some white firefighters was the result of racial stereotypes, he said in 1982.
"These guys had never much dealt with blacks except for when they'd go into the community (to fight fires). They saw a few dirty houses and thought all blacks were dirty, shiftless and lazy and not reliable to work with," he said.
"But I would sit down and talk to them and say, 'Hey, all black people are not like this."'
On probation his first year, as was the practice for all firefighters, Mr. Curry faced the daunting prospect of being transferred to a different station each month. It meant "each month starting all over with a new bunch of guys who didn't know much about blacks.
"But if I had a problem with any guy, I'd talk it over with him. It's not all on the white guys; blacks are responsible for trying to accept whites, too. You can't deal with people with an overall attitude, but on an individual basis."
Mr. Curry could not pinpoint when racial tension in the stations began to subside. But he and Brown agreed that relations improved once they started lining up beside whites to fight fires.
In 1979, a federal lawsuit mandated a plan under which the city was forced to hire and promote black firefighters.
The year Mr. Curry and Brown were hired, the fire chief was Zelmar C. Greenway, who retired in 1981. Asked in 1982 why no African-Americans were hired prior to 1972, Greenway said the department was "unable to recruit minorities."
Figures released recently by the St. Petersburg Fire Department said the city has 49 African-Americans serving in a department of 322 certified firefighters -- 15 percent of the force. That includes seven lieutenants, three captains, one district chief and a division chief.
Mr. Curry was born in Monticello and came here in 1966 from Pensacola.
Survivors include two sons, Deveron and James Curry, both of St. Petersburg; his mother, Mable Curry, Pensacola; five brothers, Jimmie, West Palm Beach, Julius, Houston, Steven and Willie, both of Pensacola, and Archie, Arlington, Texas; and three sisters, Vera Reaves, Sarah Brooks and Emma Patterson, all of Pensacola.
Friends may call from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday at Smith Funeral Home, 1534 18th Ave. S, with a wake at 7 p.m. A funeral will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at 20th Street Church of Christ, 820 20th St. S.
-- Information from Times files was used in this obituary.