Guardians, The (Police Associations)

Dorothy Moses Schulz

African American police officers around the United States began to form fraternal groups as early as 1922, when such groups were organized in the New York City Police Department (NYCPD). Many of the groups took the name Guardians, although, regardless of their names, the groups shared patterns of initially meeting for fellowship or benevolent support, generally without the approval of their departments, and finally gaining charters from their cities or departments as one of the many ethnically or racially based groups active in large departments. This entry highlights the history of the Guardians and other police organizations concerned with the advancement of Black police officers. The first Guardians Club in the NYCPD comprised 31 officers, most of them assigned to the 32nd Precinct in Harlem, the city's largest African American neighborhood. One of the group's founders was Samuel Battle, who had been the first African American to pass the police ...

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