Harbor Officer Savors Latest Victory in Long Fight Against Job Bias : Discrimination: Black who was barred from a county position receives a $908,000 judgment.

In 1960, James Craig Jr. decided to leave his native Birmingham, Ala. A veteran of civil rights struggles with memories of being forced to ride in the back of the bus with other blacks, he hoped to find a different life in Los Angeles.

Instead, racial prejudice caught up with him here.

A lifelong boat-lover, he fought for 15 years to become an officer with the county Harbor Patrol, a dream he was not able to realize until 1985.

This week, Craig, now 57 and graying at the temples, was able to savor victory of another sort. A Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded him $908,000 in connection with a discrimination suit against the county. The court found that the county’s now-defunct Department of Small Craft Harbors had denied him a job in 1979 in retaliation for an earlier discrimination complaint.

“I am elated by the outcome,” Craig said Thursday over lunch near his home in Inglewood. “I’d like to be an example of something that’s positive.”

Deputy County Counsel Alan Terakawa said his office has not decided whether to appeal.

Craig’s long ordeal began in 1970. After a decade with the Santa Monica Harbor Patrol, he wanted to move on to a better paying, more challenging county job at Marina del Rey, the world’s largest man-made harbor.

At that time, the marina had no black officers. Scuttlebutt had it that the Harbor Patrol was not ready for integration and “didn’t want it shoved down their throats,” Craig said. He was fired on the final day of his six-month probation period, with no reason specified.

He complained of racial discrimination, but in 1978 a federal court rejected his claim.

The next year, Craig again applied for work with the Harbor Patrol. This time, he said, officials neglected to tell him about the second part of the required physical exam. He felt sure they were blackballing him because of the earlier complaint.

“I was disappointed and distraught, and I felt helpless,” he said. “I would have expected it in Birmingham, Ala., in 1959 but not in Los Angeles in 1979.”

In 1981, the Civil Service Commission backed up Craig’s charge and ordered the county to put him to work at the marina if he could pass the physical.

Craig was overjoyed. “I thought: ‘It’s finally come to an end. I got the job,” he said. “But suddenly, they wouldn’t put me to work.”

Instead, the county appealed twice and twice was ordered by the courts to give Craig a harbor job.

Then came another roadblock. The Sheriff’s Department, which by then had responsibility for the patrolling the harbor, ordered Craig to complete 18 weeks at the Sheriff’s Academy and another one-year probation period.

At this point, the state Court of Appeal intervened, ruling that he was entitled to join the Harbor Patrol immediately. This time, the order was followed.

After 15 years as a peace officer with the county Park Patrol, Craig was at last able to do the job he believes he was born for. Athletic, he enjoys calling upon a variety of skills--including boating, scuba-diving, firefighting and emergency medicine--and finds it rewarding to rescue people at sea.

“I’ve saved about 13 lives,” he said.

Now serving under a black unit commander, Craig feels very well treated by the Sheriff’s Department--so much so that he dropped the department as a defendant in his recent lawsuit, which he filed in 1984.

Of the Marina del Rey station’s 85 officers, 22 are black, including the captain and three sergeants, according to Lt. Steve Barnes.

Craig takes great pride in the role he has played in fostering integration. In the 1950s, he led a fight to integrate a local swimming pool. In the 1970s, he was a plaintiff in a successful federal class-action suit alleging racially discriminatory hiring practices in the Los Angeles County and city fire departments and the Sheriff’s Department.

But does he feel he wasted 15 years of his career?

Over the years, he said, there were many times he thought of quitting the fight. But now he sees things differently.

“The years I fought have proved to be the most precious of my life,” he said. “Not everybody gets a chance to accomplish something.”