Samuel Battle became the first African American patrolman in New York City in 1911.
The New York City Police Museum
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Samuel J. Battle, interviewed in 1960, was the first African American patrolman in New York City. He joined the force in 1911, assigned first to San Juan Hill, the neighborhood where Lincoln Center is today, which preceded Harlem as one of the key African American neighborhoods in Manhattan. He was soon moved to Harlem, as the African American population there grew. He would later become the first African American police sergeant (1926), lieutenant (1935), and the first African American parole commissioner (1941).
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