In a field where Black women are few and far between, metro Atlanta has had four Black women leading fire departments.
While the boys’ club that has dominated firefighting certainly isn’t going anywhere, Black women are making their mark in the fire service. From East Point appointing the country’s first ever Black woman fire chief to Decatur having the first all-female fire command, metro Atlanta has cemented its place in Black firefighting history.
Rosemary Cloud
Rosemary Cloud made history in 2002 when she became the first Black woman in the country to be named chief of a city’s fire department.
“It’s a great honor to be the first of anything, but it’s not an honor if you remain the only one,” Cloud said. “I can proudly tell you that every African American fire chief in this country that came after me, I knew them and we had some kind of relationship together.”
Credit: City of East Point
Credit: City of East Point
Cloud was raised in East Point, where she attended South Fulton High School for two years until 1970 when the district integrated and students from the all-Black school moved to Russell High School. She went on to graduate from Clark Atlanta University and worked as a paralegal until 1980, when she joined the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department, which had recently agreed to hire more African Americans as part of a lawsuit settlement.
After spending 20 years with Atlanta Fire Rescue, Cloud said she was reluctant to leave Atlanta to join East Point, even though she would be getting a promotion.
At the time, she headed Atlanta Fire Rescue’s airport division, with four stations under her command. However, her mentor and Atlanta’s second Black fire chief, Winston Minor, encouraged her to apply for and then accept the chief job in East Point.
Early on in her tenure, Cloud was able to make changes in the East Point department to recruit more minorities into the mostly white department. She also overhauled the department’s promotion process and implemented more community outreach programs.
“For women, we feel like when we show up we have to have all the ingredients in a traditionally male-dominated field,” said Cloud, who retired in 2015. “You are not baking a cake. You will not have all the ingredients. There is a learning curve, everybody makes mistakes.”
Toni Washington
When Toni Washington became the city of Decatur’s fire chief in 2009, she was the fourth Black woman in the country to hold that role. It wasn’t a given that she’d become a firefighter at all.
Credit: Madeline Thigpen
Credit: Madeline Thigpen
Although Washington grew up in a family of public servants, she wasn’t always sure of her professional path. Both of her parents were police officers, and her grandfather was one of the first Black officers hired in Savannah, her hometown.
In 1991, Washington joined the Georgia fire marshal’s office after a recommendation from her mother’s friend A.D. Bell, who later became Georgia’s first Black fire marshal. She was hired in East Point in 1995, and found herself working for a pioneer: Cloud.
“I was one of the first seven women hired in the city of East Point Fire Department,” Washington said. At only five-foot-one, she was the smallest member of the department. “People told me I couldn’t do it, so I was determined to show that not only could I do it, but I could excel at it.”
She eventually worked her way up to deputy chief in East Point before leaving to lead the Decatur department.
The Decatur Fire Department was the first in the country with an all-female command.
“My all-female command team wasn’t by design. It just happened like that,” Washington said. “There are challenges for women leaders in the fire service, period, so it feels really good.”Now in her 15th year as fire chief, Washington hopes to encourage more women and minorities to apply for firefighter jobs.
“I think it’s important for the people that we serve for Black women and diverse people to be in the fire service,” Washington said.
Marian McDaniel
Marian McDaniel was appointed chief of Rockdale County Fire Rescue on Jan. 5, 2021, making her the 12th Black woman in the country to be named fire chief. Since taking the role, she has formed the second all-female fire command in the country.
Prior to joining Rockdale Fire Rescue, McDaniel spent 20 years with Atlanta Fire Rescue.
Credit: Rockdale County Fire Rescue
Credit: Rockdale County Fire Rescue
When she retired from Atlanta Fire Rescue in September 2017, McDaniel was the assistant chief of emergency medical services. She joined the Rockdale department in October 2017 as deputy fire chief of administration.
McDaniel said that initially she wasn’t planning on returning to the fire service after her retirement but changed her mind after meeting with the chairman of Rockdale County’s board of commissioners.
“When I arrived in Rockdale County, I was the fifth Black person, I made number five,” she said. McDaniel initially didn’t understand why the fire department wasn’t representative of the community it served.
She found that the exam being used required recruits to already have some firefighting knowledge, which meant most of the people who could pass had already worked as volunteer firefighters, who are mostly white.
By updating the exam to focus on testing for reading, writing, and mental acuity, McDaniel said the department now has closer to 65 Black employees.
Latosha Clemons
Latosha Clemons became chief of the Forest Park Fire & Emergency Services Department in August 2021, America’s 14th Black woman fire chief.
Clemons began her career in the fire service in her hometown of Boynton Beach, Florida. She was recruited into the department by its first Black fire chief, Floyd Jordan, who had been Miami’s second Black firefighter.
“I got hired back in 1996 as the first Black woman [in the department],” Clemons said, adding that she knew she would have to excel in order to be successful in the department.
Credit: Madeline Thigpen
Credit: Madeline Thigpen
“I was number one on the lieutenant’s exam, number three on the captain’s, and number two on the battalion’s,” Clemons recalled. In 2016, she was appointed the city’s first Black female deputy chief.
Two months after Clemons retired from Boynton Beach Fire Rescue in 2020, she sued the city after a mural of her and another Black firefighter was painted over with white faces.
“That was crazy and traumatic at the same time, but also very revealing,” she said.
After her retirement, Clemons said she was hurt and a little angry about her experiences in Boynton Beach Fire Rescue, and had no plans of returning to the fire service.
“Then I saw that Forest Park was needing a deputy chief,” Clemons said. She talked with her family and decided to apply for the job.
She joined Forest Park in December 2020 as deputy chief, and when the former chief retired in April 2021 she applied for the promotion.
“I’m honored, I’m grateful. I’ve had the best three years thus far,” she said. “This leadership and my fire service team, they are just an amazing group of men and women.”
Clemons recently began hosting a free one-day fire camp for girls to get them interested in the fire service. She wants to see more women get involved in the fire service.
“Women represent 4% of the fire service nationally, and Black women are even fewer,” she said.
Credit: Capital B
Credit: Capital B
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