Flames of Prejudice Also Abated by Family’s Work

When Jacob (Jake) and Terry (Ox) Addison--grandsons of a slave--joined the Los Angeles Fire Department in the 1930s, they were assigned to a Central Avenue fire house manned by “colored” firefighters.

Over the years they fought not only fires, but also discrimination in a department that promoted black firefighters only in two segregated stations, 14 and 30. And they later endured both open and covert prejudice against blacks once the department was integrated in 1955.

Both eventually rose to be fire captains, and on Saturday, the Addisons, including Ox’s son, Terry Jr., who became a firefighter in 1969, were honored for nearly a century of family service to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

The Fire Department designated Fire Station 15, across the street from USC on Jefferson Boulevard, as Addison Station and unveiled a plaque reading: “Dedicated to the Addisons for Service to the Community and the Los Angeles Fire Department.”

It was an occasion for ceremony, music, prayers and speeches, and City Councilman Robert Farrell, Fire Commissioner Kenneth S. Washington and Fire Chief Donald O. Manning praised the service of the Addisons.

“When you look at 100 years of commitment, it’s overpowering,” Manning said. “I personally salute the Addison family.”

At 78, Jake Addison is a short, smiling, gregarious man with long arms and powerful hands. He served 43 years, seven months and 26 days, retired in June, 1980, and returned for six months of contract duty to work on developing an improved fire nozzle.

Ox Addison served 36 1/2 years and retired in January, 1972. He lost his sight and feet because of diabetes and died in August, 1981. But even in his blindness, friends said, he prepared more than 50 recruits for the oral examination required to become a firefighter.

Terry Addison Jr., 39, is an engineer, charged with caring for the pumper at Fire Station 33 and maintaining the flow of water while fighting fires. He has been in the department for 17 years and expects that he will go for 30 years of service, at least.

“It’s just overwhelming,” he said. “It’s a shame that my father, who helped recruit young people on the job, is not here. I just feel I’m getting in real cheap.”

The cost paid by black firefighters because of discrimination over the years was a secondary theme in Saturday’s ceremony.

Jake Addison, favoring a bad knee, limped to the microphone to a standing ovation and touched lightly on the sensitive subject, reminding those in the audience of about 200 of the “frustration” that black firefighters encountered, particularly in the slow pace of promotions.

Mostly, however, he praised the Los Angeles Fire Department and Chief Manning.

“One of the greatest things that ever happened to me was to be able to serve the Los Angeles City Fire Department,” Addison said. “This is probably the most tremendous day in my career.”

Attorney Arnett Hartsfield, a retired city firefighter who led the fight for integration of the city Fire Department during a 20-year career, recalled the struggle of blacks for equality and opportunity from slavery to the present.

“I’m proud of what we have accomplished in spite of discrimination,” said Hartsfield, a former Los Angeles Civil Service Commissioner. “But we still have a long way to go to overcome intolerance.” He noted that today’s black firefighters are not satisfied with conditions or the speed of improvement within the department.

Terry Addison Jr. said his father, Ox, never complained about the way he was treated.

“He had a way of looking beyond that,” he said. “My father would always say that the way white guys were acting was ignorant. He wouldn’t put himself on their level.”

Jake Addison likewise said he never became embittered by discrimination. When he was transferred to a white firehouse in 1960, some of his white colleagues refused to eat with him.

“I realized, partially because my grandfather was a slave, there was a price that we had to pay in time for some of these things,” he said. “I don’t say that it is right that we had to pay it. But there was a price we had to pay.”

In his case, he said, the price meant that it took him about 30 years to make captain.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that I would never have retired as a captain,” he said. “No way. Absolutely no way. I would have been a chief officer if I had been a white man. There’s no doubt in my mind about it.”

Still, Jake Addison has a dream of helping the department by developing a nozzle to increase the height and distance of a water stream to fight fires in high-rise buildings. And, peering from behind the microphone at a strapping great nephew seated in the front row at Saturday’s ceremony, he confided another dream.

He said Michael Addison, Terry Jr.’s 12-year-old son, wants to go to UCLA and be an architect. But, Jake Addison expressed the hope that young Michael will first become a firefighter, the third generation of Addisons on the Fire Department, to continue the family’s service into the new century.