In this powerful episode of Heroes Behind the Badge, Executive Director of the National Black Sheriffs Association, Anthony Amerson, shares the extraordinary story of his father - Lucius Amerson - the first Black sheriff elected in the South since Reconstruction.

Anthony takes us inside the struggles, courage, and legacy of his father’s service, while also confronting today’s biggest challenges in law enforcement:

• recruitment and retention
• defund-the-police impacts
• mental health and wellness
• the rise of AI and automation in policing
• strained budgets in rural America
• the need for community resilience
• the future of sheriffs’ offices nationwide

You’ll also hear deeply personal moments: a near-fatal car chase, a jailhouse shootout, handwritten letters from across the country, and the creation of the Black Sheriffs Memorial in Washington, D.C.

If you believe in supporting the men and women behind the badge, this is a story worth hearing.

Learn more or get involved: https://citizensbehindthebadge.org

Support the National Black Sheriffs Association: https://blacksheriffs.com/

Listen to more episodes of Heroes Behind the Badge.

Like, Subscribe, and Share to support law enforcement across the country.

On today's episode of Heroes Behind the Badge, we're joined by

Anthony Amerson, executive Director of the National Black Sheriff's Association,

and son of a groundbreaking sheriff whose legacy still shapes law enforcement today.

His story is powerful, timely, and deeply human.

Let's get right into it.

Wow.

I, and preparing, and preparing for this, this interview.

I said I, I don't know where we start.

So I'd like to start right now with what you are doing today as the

executive director of the National Black Sheriff's Association.

A fairly new organization, but I know you have a history with our founder,

our CEO, our president, Craig Floyd, and that you share a lot of common

goals with citizens behind the badge.

So I thought we'd start with, and I, wanna tell our viewers, our listeners, stay

tuned for this entire podcast, by the way.

Stay tuned because Anthony is gonna tell a very inspirational,

moving, touching story.

Okay.

I've heard parts of it and it is a great story that you need to hear.

So by all means stay tuned for the whole podcast.

But for starters, Anthony, again, a warm welcome to the

Heroes Behind the Badge podcast.

Tell us about the National Black Sheriff's Association.

Thank you so much, Dennis, for the very nice introduction

and allowing me to speak about the National Black Sheriff's Association.

The concept for the National Black Sheriff's Association

was born back in 2022.

My father was the first black sheriff elected in the South since reconstruction.

During this ceremony, they basically dedicated a specific portion

of Alabama Highway in his name.

And during this ceremony, there were sheriffs that came from all

over the state to be a part of this.

And they gave me their own personal testimonies of how my father's

election opened the door for them to go into law enforcement.

And I was so inspired by that as an adult.

Being able to hear these aspiring testimonies from folks.

It really moved me because I said that, we need to encourage more people to go into

public safety and become public servants.

It inspired me to a point where I said, I need to be able to leverage

my professional experience filling a need for advocating for sheriffs more.

So as a part of that, I say, let me map out.

Figure out where the sheriffs are demographically and geographically

and figure out what their needs are.

So I commissioned the Trailblazers for Justice Research Project, which was a two

year effort to map out all of the African American sheriffs passed and present.

And this journey was Wow, amazing.

It took me to Fort Bend County, Texas.

The grave site of Walter Moses Burton first black sheriff elected in the

nation in 1869, and then to work my way back from 1869 to present.

I was just touched by so many inspiring stories of individuals who stepped

into fill a role in the rule of law as sheriffs across the nation.

As I started coming to present day, sheriffs, elected from 2000 on up.

I just started conducting a listening tour to find out what were their

challenges, what did they need help on.

And I'll tell you the sheriffs are having a difficult time dealing with

reduced budgets, and higher crime, and low staffing, and I started taking

all of this in and I'm asking myself what type of, organization or platform

was available for the sheriffs.

Now we do have the National sheriffs Association, which

has been around since 1881.

We're very familiar with them and what they've been doing.

We share a lot of commonality in issues that are affecting sheriffs, but our

specific take on it was we needed to have a way to provide a voice for African

American sheriffs since there are 3061 sheriff officers across the nation.

Yet, there's only about 175 African American sheriffs holding the office.

And surprising enough, when you look at the demographics, a lot of our

sheriffs are serving in major urban cities across the nation, Dallas,

Texas, Charlotte, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, or Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania, and other places.

Wonder what were, Anthony, it's interesting that you did

this study, I find that fascinating.

What were the top, say, two or three issues?

You alluded to it, but what are the top two or three issues that

your organization is, is there for?

Is there to help out?

What are the top two or three issues?

Top two issues would be the professionalization of the office.

Everyone knows if sheriffs are elected officials, right?

There is no playbook on how to be a sheriff, right?

Normally people that are, ascending the ranks from deputies to run for sheriffs,

and then in some cases we have, other law enforcement officials that decide

to take up being sheriffs as well.

But there is no playbook on how to be a sheriff.

So the first thing we wanted to focus on, how can we advance excellence?

And then also we wanna attract the youth.

We wanna attract more young people to come into law enforcement.

So our model is not only based on the sheriffs, but the teams

that support the sheriffs.

Yeah.

let me jump in here because you touched on something just a moment ago that

really is, close to the heart here.

That is, the recruitment of, young people, to the law enforcement profession.

this has taken a big hit.

you and I had a discussion not too long ago.

You reached out to me.

We've known each other for a long time, but we share one very

important common ground, and that is.

We've gotta do more to recruit young people to come into this profession.

The types of people that would've probably joined law enforcement

years ago, but because of the defund and defame, the police

movement, law enforcement profession as a whole has taken a huge hit.

we've lost some 40,000 law enforcement officers in this country

due to either retention issues or recruitment, challenges and.

I'm so glad to hear that's one of your top priorities because, as citizens

behind the badge, your organization and many others are working so hard right

now to try to get people to think of law enforcement as a sacred ground, as a

place that, is honorable, and that you can truly make a difference in this society.

I'm interested to know, when you think of the defund, the police movement.

how much of a hit did that hurt?

not only law enforcement as a whole, but specifically, in, the

black sheriffs of this country.

You've been talking to them.

What are they telling you about how much of an impact the defund movement has

had on law enforcement in their areas?

That's a great point, Craig.

And it's having a significant impact because what we're finding is that.

At the municipal level below the county, that oftentimes those, law

enforcement officers, police chiefs are, their agencies are subject to

budget funding, which a lot of these municipal towns, small towns across

the nation aren't able to support.

And as a result, they are forced to make financial decisions

about how public safety is done.

In often that encounters.

Defunding police and replacing them with alternates or for the sheriffs

to absorb some of the responsibilities that are being left behind after

these municipal police stations and what have you are defunded.

So it's creating a strain and it's not only creating a strain in the rural areas,

it's creating a strain in urban areas too.

Everyone has been watching the, playbook on how recruitment has

been going across the country.

And in the words of retired sheriff Jackie Barrett Washington.

She was a first black sheriff, female sheriff, elected in the

nation in Fulton County, Georgia.

She says there are not enough morally and ethically sound people that

want to go into law enforcement.

We have to really look at ourselves, self-reflective and find out why is it

that we aren't able to attract better quality people to the profession?

One issue is funding and salary.

We see now with ICE and US Park Services offering signing bonuses

from $50,000 to $70,000 that they are taking the best of the best that

want to go into the career field.

And a large part of that is driven by the economics.

People have to take care of their families.

They have responsibilities, and the salaries at the municipal, county,

state level are just not as attractive.

And we've watched the economy change and we've watched the impact, and

it's not going to get any better.

Yeah.

what do you think about, standards for law enforcement, as part

of this recruitment effort?

What we've seen in some areas anyway, is a reduction in standards, a lowering

of standards, physical fitness standards all of a sudden, are gone by the wayside.

in terms of, the.

Backgrounds of, applicants, did you do drugs?

it used to be, a non-starter.

and if you had, and, now we've loosened those, criteria, we could just go

on and on, but, are you seeing, the standards, of law enforcement, for

purposes of better recruitment being lowered in, with the black sheriffs that

you're talking to around the country?

Yes, everyone has had to adopt that strategy because

there are just not enough people that are interested in applying.

And then after they apply, they recruit and they complete

their initial assessments.

How do you retain these folks?

To become a law enforcement official requires you to take on

a different type of lifestyle.

one that requires you to have discipline.

One that requires you to have some type of a moral responsiveness

about community and personal values.

And what we're finding is that there's just not enough

people that have those type of characteristics for law enforcement.

So as a result, they have had to lower standards.

Some of the things that you've mentioned are some of the areas where they have had

the lower standards, but the problem is that just as easy as you can recruit them.

These same folks normally get washed out through, disciplinary actions and

other infractions because of those same characteristic traits that we

are bypassing just to get the numbers.

There's just not enough folks that want to go into it that fit that criteria,

and we're going to see more examples of, law enforcement officers having

bad conduct misconduct, alcohol abuse.

It's a difficult job being in law enforcement, not only on the

individual, but on their family.

So I just wanna chime in here because this is an

interesting topic and I can actually speak from personal experience.

So in 1980, I was hired by the Metro Dade Police Department in Miami, Florida.

And at that time they were recruiting 2,500 new cops.

The City of Miami Police Department was trying to hire

approximately another thousand cops.

So precisely what we're just discussing about lax and lowering of standards.

A lot of the standards were lowered then because crime was off the hook down here.

And the problem that I see now is, we always talk about in life and in the world

how, you have to pay attention to history and you have to learn from history.

And we've come back around here.

We've, allowed misdemeanors and we've allowed, some felony charges.

If you have a DUI passed, if you have drugs like Craig commented, those aren't.

Eliminating factors anymore to getting hired and, it's a really, tough time.

And I would further say, because back when, I first got hired, it was

an, it was honorable to be a cop.

And I think it's not just about salary and money and bonuses right

now, it's about respect and it's about who's got your back and who's

supporting you and the politicians not.

Badgering and demonizing the police because that's the other

thing we talk about to fund.

But now it's really demonizing.

I wouldn't go back to law enforcement if they paid me a million dollars

a year to do it right now.

and I sit around with a lot of my friends and they're like, I don't want

my kids going into law enforcement.

And it's not about the money because it was never about

the money in law enforcement.

It was about doing the job.

It was about serving your country and your community.

It was the honorable thing to do.

Right now it's about respect and, not demonizing the police and having effective

law enforcement leaders, whether that be a sheriff or a police chief that's got the

balls to stand up and do the right thing and politicians doing the right thing.

And we're seeing a lot of politicalization that the

sheriffs are having to deal with.

From their government entities that support them in funding.

They're always cutting the sheriff's budget.

And of course, jails are a sore thumb for any share.

Most of them have been outsourced to Department of Corrections in

different cities to run and operate.

however, it's expensive to maintain an infrastructure for jails.

One of our sheriffs down in New Orleans, if you saw the

national news, had a jail break.

Where some inmates escaped and were at large for a long period of time.

But when they started diving down deeper into the maintenance issues at the jail

facility, there were a lot of, maintenance issues that had not been addressed in

part because of funding, disagreements with some of the local, governing bodies.

And it's expensive to run jails.

Why do you think the federal prison has privatized so many of them?

It's because the infrastructures themselves deteriorate so fast

that you have to rebuild it.

These are the same thing that my father had to deal with in the 1960s.

His jails were subject to lawsuits and complaints by prisons because

the county refused to actually fund the maintenance repairs or to.

Create a structure rebuild and create a structure that could be advanced enough

to hold inmates as well as to be able to operate with some type of efficiency.

And it's just one of those issues that a lot of politicians are using to

take funds away from the sheriff that they previously had allocated to them.

And this is a, method of defunding members by reducing their funding.

Telling them to do more with less.

And this is only going to set up eventually, what we know is going to be

the onset of AI technology taking over a law enforcement role in our society.

We're gonna talk about that in a bit, but, here we are.

We've talked about you being the executive director of the National

Black Sheriff's Association.

It's a newly formed organization.

We've, hit on your father, that was a sheriff.

We're gonna talk more about that, but we haven't talked about you.

So who are you and what's your background, Anthony, and what got

you here to where you're at today?

I am an author, I'm a historian.

I'm a retired foreign service officer from the United States

Agency for International Development.

I am also an advocate for sheriffs and public safety.

I got into this because during my experience while working in the government

as a foreign service officer, I had the opportunity to live abroad for more than

10 years, and I worked in these developing countries where the United States was

trying to actually rebuild countries and provide better services to its citizens.

I had an assignment in Afghanistan.

Two assignments in Pakistan, in Ethiopia, and in Haiti after the earthquake.

And what I saw in all of these different country scenarios was

basically there was a lot of conflict.

People that were not happy with government because the government

wasn't able to provide services and.

Public safety is a service that the government has to provide, and

when it's absent, it creates chaos.

It creates people breaking laws.

It creates the absence of rules and regulations for how the society operates.

So I saw that and I saw the effort of some of the great development

professionals that the government has and to solving some of these problems.

What we found out in Afghanistan was.

It was much more cheaper to build schools and hospitals and provide

services to people to prevent them from becoming radicalized into

terrorist organizations than it was to put military troops on the ground.

We know that after the Afghanistan and the Iraq conflict, United States

government spent roughly $17 trillion on both of those type of engagements,

whereas a development perspective would've saved millions and millions of dollars

and promoted more long-term stability.

And taking that example and applying it to the society that

we're in the United States.

And I will suggest everyone, if you have opportunity to go outside the United

States and see how other people live, you'd be shocked in a lot of cases.

But in particular, when we're watching, Richard Wolf, the US economist

has been talking about, we are on a collision course for economic.

We're seeing increases in repossessions, evictions, and job

loss all across the nation, which is going to create food insecurity.

Same type of issues that I saw in these developing countries.

What is the law enforcement community, or are they prepared to deal with this?

We have never seen it before.

We've never, we saw a little bit of it in COVID when there were grocery stores that

were bombarded with people buying toilet paper and other, food, items they needed.

But what is it gonna look like with the ending of SNAP benefits and

with people's cars being evicted and no jobs and there's no replacement

plan for people to get reemployed?

What are we going to do?

What is the state of public safety gonna look like?

And I would tell you that.

It's gonna put more strain on existing resources than we've ever seen before.

Craig jump in there.

We're not prepared for it.

And Anthony, we touched base on, those issues, in our recent discussion.

And from that discussion, we talked about something that Kathy Lanier did, when she

was Chief of Police in Washington, dc.

I admire the hell outta Kathy.

I think she had a lot of great, innovative ideas, that were

implemented and that worked.

And one of her philosophies was that, the police car should be a billboard,

to people in that community that if you need help, of any type, not just prime

related, not public safety related, but any help is needed, where do you turn?

Most people in, that dire need, don't know where to go,

in the government bureaucracy.

it's so confusing to all of us.

and yet that police car is that one symbol, that one visible symbol of

government, and you should be able to go to that police officer in that patrol

vehicle, tell them you have a problem.

Tell them you need help in some way.

They may not be able to provide that help to themselves, but they can help you get

the assistance you need and guide you, through that, very confusing bureaucracy.

I loved her philosophy and I know you, you and I discussed it.

You, seem to think that had a lot of legs as well.

And I think it, it speaks to your point that, over time we may find ourselves in,

dire straits, especially in rural America, where a lot of these black sheriffs serve.

And, I think we need to do something to help those people that are in need

now, but maybe in more need later on.

And I'd like to hear your thoughts on that concept.

Absolutely you are right.

law enforcement and, the identity of law enforcement as a safe

space for citizens is a really, a truly benefit of being in uniform.

It's you have so much access to people in need.

Always tell folks that when you talk about law enforcement officers, they

see people at every spectrum of life from almost dying to people celebrate.

You see every level of.

Issues that people go through in life and food insecurity

will create a lot of chaos.

It'll, what we have done at the National Black sheriffs Association

is develop a program, where we're looking to attract more partners,

more non-traditional partners.

When we say.

We have a lot of law enforcement folks, but what are the other

partners that have a role in building resilience in communities?

Because essentially that's what we want to do.

We wanna build more resilience.

We want people to stay at home.

When people stay at home, they're less likely to do crime.

They have food, water, a roof over their head.

They're more inclined to stay in the house.

And that's what we wanna really wanna promote.

We have, developed a decade of change program.

Which is going to provide, mobile health and dental services as an outreach effort

for the National Black sheriffs where we'll actually go into communities, set

up these free services, provide full assistance as well as social service

partners to help folks that are in need.

We see a lot of churches doing this right now.

Churches are valuable partners.

We see that there are more partners out there, some of the corporate partners

that have a social responsibility to help us do this because.

Government services as we know previously are going away.

So now it's time for our non-traditional and our corporate partners to join

up with law enforcement to help us build more community resilience by

providing services directly to them.

Anthony, I wanna jump back in here.

We have our personal on staff, AI King.

Dennis Collins and Dennis wants to ask you about your thoughts

about AI in law enforcement.

thank you William.

That's very nice.

and I wanna take a quick pause here before I ask Anthony this question.

We're listening today to Anthony Amerson.

Anthony is the Executive Director of the National Black Sheriff's Association,

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Anthony, you pique my interest.

And I am a huge, AI person.

And I'm curious as to your thoughts about how you see AI fitting into

law enforcement and you painted the picture of, is law enforcement

ready for what's about to come?

And I think we're all sitting here saying, not so sure.

Not so sure.

Do you think AI and how do you see AI fitting into the

future of law enforcement?

Wow, that's a great question.

I spent a lot of time overseas in Asia, and if you ever go to any

of the countries in Asia, more automation and robotics than you will

see anywhere in the United States.

Not only from fast food restaurants, but Services.

I think I was in a business class lounge in one of the airports and they had

a valet come around, a robot that was offering drinks and taking up trades.

And there it's just been expanding so rapidly in Asia, we're so far

behind, but AI is going to take a significant role in law enforcement

and especially in rural America.

Right now, Miami-Dade County Sheriff's Office has been rolling

out a driverless patrol vehicle.

That will perform patrol duties in the Miami area, be responsive

and things of that sort.

So we're already seeing it roll out.

What does this mean for local law enforcement offices?

if you don't have the recruitment numbers, then you're gonna have to come up with

some type of replacement of services.

You're gonna see more drones used to cover more coverage, provide more surveillance.

You're going to see.

Subscription services for Ring cameras becoming more privatized.

You live in an area that's, doesn't have a lot of police support and they

don't have the resources, you'll be able to get a subscription off of a

Ring camera device that will be able to monitor your, and connect with law

enforcement if you have a problem.

The rollout of more cameras.

There's so much technology in a smart-camera area, and cameras have

been shown to be a significant deterrent for crime all across the world.

In fact, in some countries that don't even allow police officers to carry firearms

or wear firearms, that legal cameras are the leading, asset that are helping them

to deter crime and also to catch crime.

You go in places of Thailand, they have a camera network system set up

to, you can create an offense in one area and cameras will track your,

your path all the way to your home.

And officers can go right there and arrest you or detain you.

What happens.

So hackers are gonna play a significant role in the technology is growing.

And last but not least, we're gonna see more chatbot services.

Where you will be able to go into, for example, your Sheriff's office website

and they'll have a chatbot what will essentially be like a 9 1 1 operator.

We see these chatbots popping up on our websites where they'll give

like customer service engagement or customer service responses.

You're gonna see the same thing off of the 9 1 1 component where

you would type in and say, Hey, I'm sick, I need an ambulance.

And then the chatbot will go through prompts that will find out what type

of services you need and then connect you to those services who will be

dispatched to come provide you assistance.

So I seen that the cameras.

the, driverless vehicles are all going to be how we roll

out AI into law enforcement.

I, Anthony, I love your vision.

Lemme jump in.

related to one of the comments Anthony just made changing, subjects

for a moment, let mental health.

Is, one of the pillars of the National Black Sheriff's Association.

I know it's also a pillar of citizens behind the badge.

The, mental, health wellness of our officers.

So important.

police suicide has become rampant in this country, for a variety of

reasons, especially the stress of the job, the number of traumatic events

that an officer has to deal with.

tell us a little bit about, what you're doing in that area.

we have, attracted mental health professionals that

want to come and help us be a part of our mission to advance leadership.

And a part of advancing leadership is talking about real mental health

issues and the impact mental health has on officers doing their jobs.

We talked a lot.

We talked previously about the screening and the need to recruit more people, but.

There's a lot of stress and trauma that goes with go being in law enforcement

and as a part of the leaders, we have to incorporate specialist technicians

therapy, have access to resources for our law enforcement staff so that they can

maintain the mental health and wellness they need in order to do their jobs.

And we are also promoting more physical fitness, which tends to

help with, the mental disposition of folks as well as wellness lifestyles.

It's, you cannot go into law enforcement and not maintain a

healthy body, a healthy mind.

It requires a, different lifestyle, which is one of the reasons why we can

recruit people, but we can't retain them because not everyone is willing to make

that sacrifice to maintain themselves.

We have seen that some of the, law enforcement offices, like for example,

I'm here in Washington DC so Metropolitan Police Department, they have officers that

are working excessive amounts of overtime.

We're like, okay, fine.

this person wants to, Work over time.

But we know the long-term impact and the productivity on people that overwork

themselves, they become burned out.

They, start making mistakes.

They lack, discernment and judgment because they're just mentally exhausted.

So mental health is a priority for us and we have attracted some, mental health

professionals that wanna partner with us to address some of those issues.

And we will incorporate them into.

Our training program for our sheriffs, and by the way, we have started a sheriffs

academy, which is focused on developing leadership for our newly assigned

sheriffs and for individuals that want to go into run for office for sheriff,

and that's an important part of it.

Excellent.

Dennis and Bill, I, don't know if I've shared, the backstory with Anthony and

myself, but, years ago, I can't even remember how long ago, maybe 10 years

or, but the bottom line is Anthony contacted our office at the National

Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial Fund.

We were in the midst of building a national law enforcement

museum, and he was very kind.

We were trying to collect artifacts that told important.

Pieces of law enforcement's history and Anthony could not have been more generous.

He shared with us a number of artifacts related to his father, Lucius Amerson, the

first black sheriff since reconstruction in the South, elected, I think in 1966.

And, we touched on that earlier in our conversation, but I think it's

important to get into it a little deeper.

Anthony, your father's story is amazing.

we'd have a black sheriff, what, since 1877, I think you said something along

those lines, and all of a sudden your father gets the idea of, I'm gonna

run for sheriff in the south, the deep South Macon County, Alabama.

And, I can't imagine what.

Motivated him to do that.

the Ku Klux Klan obviously, had its teeth out in those days, causing

trouble for blacks, across the south.

and yet your father, courageously, I think ran for sheriff.

And, became the first black sheriff since Reconstruction in the South,

and we're so honored, that Bill and Dennis, I don't think you, you may not

know this, we have a section in our national law enforcement museum that

tells the story of Lucius Amerson and, we're very proud to be able to do that.

But Anthony, tell us a little bit about the history of your father.

Why in the world would a, a black man in the deep South decide to run for sheriff?

And how was he able to win?

the short answer is he was at the right place at the right time.

interesting story about my dad that I learned is that he was born in 1933,

which was right near the end of the Great Depression, and he had, seven

siblings, five brothers, one sister and himself, and each one of his brothers

eventually left the rural town they grew up in and winning into the army.

Because around that time, world War II was starting to get generated and he

saw his brothers come home with money, experiences, excitement about life.

And let's face it, after the Great Depression, the country

was decimated financially.

And he saw the army as his way to see a different part of the world.

So with his most permission, he joined the army at 17 years old.

And around that time, the Korean conflict was just starting up.

It followed World War II shortly after early 1950s.

So they deployed him to Korea, where he served as an infantry man.

Now, these were hardened veterans who had come outta World War II and

were now going into the Korean War.

So that group of men had a certain, shrewdness about

themselves, about being a soldier.

It was a very hard life, and as I said, my father was just 17 years old.

Can you imagine a 17-year-old today going into combat and living there?

So he stayed in the army for eight and a half years, had different assignments,

and then eventually he got out and says, I want to continue my education.

So he used the GI Bill to enroll at Tuskegee Institute now

called Tuskegee University to pursue a degree in electronics.

This is around the 1960s and around the 1960s was a difficult time in American

history where there were clashes, domestic clashes internally that created

a lot of conflict across the country.

You talked before about the clan and other social changes that were taking

place, but on these college campuses, they were right with activism,

students that were promoting, voter registration, equality of rights, sit-ins,

demonstrations, all of those things are farther than 1960 civil rights movement.

We saw that he was pretty much, not focused on that part of activism.

He was like, I'm here to get my education.

I've been in war.

I'll have time for this things.

But unfortunately, there was a student on the campus who was,

brutally murdered while trying to test the public accommodations Act.

Public accommodations act basically say that bathrooms, public bathrooms

could not be seCraigated by color.

And there was one time, there was one gas station next to the bus station in the

town where my dad was going to college at, and one student activist wanted to test

it, and he wanted to go use the bathroom.

He was refused.

There were argument ensue and he was killed.

This created an outrage and a protest of the students.

As a result, my father saw that this is an opportunity because a local sheriff

did not do much to provide transparency or to provide sense of equality.

And the person that was arrested, this person by the way, they killed

this, student, was eventually exonerated by, a all white jury, but.

He says, after being in war, and soldiers get exposed to working with different

people and personalities, and this was one of the values that he brought with

him after he finished serving in the military and he saw the Sheriff's office

as an extension of a paramilitary type of organization similar to the army,

uniform structure, discipline, firearms, those things were very common to him.

So it just so happened that the voter's right ACT had recently got passed.

Which provided more access for African Americans to vote and the

students were already galvanized.

So he was at the right place at the right time when he decided to

run for sheriff, because his whole thing was, I want to have more

opportunities for myself in the future.

And he saw running for office as sheriff as one of those ways he could do it.

So he ran successfully.

He was elected.

Not to say after he was elected that things were peachy cream,

but it was a rather, highs and lows after he got elected.

Initially after getting elected, he was sought after and gave

over 100 speaking engagements to other Democratic, candidates that

were continually run for office.

He was invited to the White House to meet President Lyndon Johnson.

At the time, the Democratic Party was galvanizing voter registration, and

they invited a lot of newly elected, African-American leaders to the White

House to meet the president and talk more strategically about how to increase

voter output and things of that sort.

But then there were some issues that were really, man, as I learned about

him, it was really challenging for him.

He had a shootout at the jail one night where an inmate got ahold of a firearm

and started shooting and caused the chaos and caused all the law enforcement from

the state and other counties to come in.

He had a hard chase in the middle of the night where he almost

lost his life, chasing some, some kids that were in a runaway car.

going down the streaming, two lane highways, as a result,

his car was in an accident.

It ran off the road causing fire.

75% of his body was burned and he had to be hospitalized, and he just so

happened to be in an election year and he won election from his hospital bed.

So a lot.

I'm curious though, just to cut in for a moment.

How does a black man win an election in the deep sell in the 1960s?

That just seems unfathomable.

Easy.

The demographic voter demographics in Macon County was 85% black.

So like I said, he was in the right place at the right time and all of

these students were so galvanized.

it, even today, look at some of the protest gatherings that are happening.

People are galvanized.

It was that same energy that was going on in the 1960s and the students

were like really pushing voter registration, going out, house by house

individual, individual by individual.

Getting them registered to vote.

And that was when I talked about he, my father was in the right place at the

right time because historically there were some areas in the south that was

like, even though we have the numbers to elect more black officials, we're just not

ready to do that because it would upset the status quo and the relationships.

But at this time in Macon County, by it being primarily

African American, voting base.

That was the time and they all came out in overwhelming

numbers and elected my father.

It was more like, this was their first battleground in testing

their ability to galvanize voters by getting him elected, so.

We see it, spread to other, southern areas, other southern

counties, where they electing black sheriffs, soon after your father.

Absolutely, There were several, in Alabama.

in other parts of the country that were electing, black sheriffs after

my father's election, as I mentioned, he was in high demand as a speaker for

different cities that wanted to galvanize voting, so they were spreading the word.

The Democratic party had a net of.

Leaders across the country that were promoting more voter,

registration and galvanizing voters.

And they basically tapped him into a role where he was sent

and dispatched to go and speak.

Churches, schools, going to elected officials, making public appearances

to talk about the importance of getting, of voting, the importance of.

Getting folks registered to vote and the role that they could take

in performing in the society.

So it wasn't so difficult for him to do because of the location and the democratic

support for candidates at that time.

and it helped a lot because after he was elected, there were hundreds of sheriffs

elected all the way to the today where we now we have more than 175 African-American

sheriffs serving in office with 19 of those being African-American females.

So I wanna jump in, Anthony, and you, you hit on this a little bit

about the car chase and your father, was severely burned, 85% of his body.

clearly he, survived and, went on.

But you mentioned earlier on that you were.

A year and a half old when he became sheriff and he was

sheriff for 20 years there.

So it was all of your developmental years.

So you must have heard lots of stories.

Been around the cop shop a bunch of times, met all the other deputies and cops.

Everybody loves a wild police story.

Of those 20 years that you remember being around your

dad, what's the craziest story?

as because of the age that I was at, I didn't really

have firsthand account of some of the, bizarre incidents he happened.

But, my father was a, he was the type of person where he archived everything

about his life in great tale news, articles, photographs, letters.

All of those things he kept in his possession and that kind of, and once I

started diving into the research about his life, it really opened my eyes about

the impact he had across the country.

I think the most bizarre story that really inspired me to really go forward

with, promoting my father's legacy was the car chase, because it was like one

of these things out of a movie where, you know, in the middle of the night.

You get a call about some, criminals that are in a hot high speed pursuit

through your county, and you join in on this ongoing pursuit down these winding

country roads only to be, collide with the vehicle that was, in the way and

as a result being, forced off the road and your vehicle catching on fire.

75% of his body and also badly burned.

He was hospitalized.

His firearm of choice was a 3 57 Magnum, and that damaged firearm is also

archived in the National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum for folks to see.

But that really showed me a lot about my father's courage because it's

difficult to take on some of these jobs, and that was a bizarre story.

For me to re about 'cause I had the police reports, I had eyewitness, and

then I got letters from people all across the country who sent to my father,

wishing him well, speedy recovery.

And the interesting thing about, the way people correspond back then than

they do today where we have emails in Texas, everyone was handwriting

letters and they were signing them.

It was so interesting to see these letters signed from people all over the country.

wishing you a speed of recovery.

We thank you so much for what you're doing.

Sign Joyce K. White, Oregon, the state of Oregon, Denver, Colorado.

So it was so interesting how people put their identity in some

of the written correspondence.

That they sent to him.

And it was like people were really supporting not only him as an

individual, but law enforcement.

They were supporting law in order and that covered all demographic

backgrounds and all colors,

So you mentioned that he chronicled and saved and wrote down many

of his experiences as, as a, sheriff and during your childhood that ultimately

led to a book that the two of you did.

Isn't that right?

yes.

the book is called Great Courage and it's a story, the Autobiography of my

Father, first Black Sheriff, elected in, in the South after reconstruction.

we have,

it's available on our website in case you wanna get a copy.

This book is basically my father speaking to people today,

and I recently discovered.

Letters that he had wrote saying he wanted to archive his life in a museum.

And that's the next subject that I wanted to introduce about the Black Sheriff's

Memorial that we built here in Washington, DC to honor him as well as other black

sheriffs in the history of America.

This a memorial that you're working on?

Yes, We've been working on it for about four years now.

Okay.

it's in Washington, DC.

It's got, some static displays, some, famous, black sheriffs have passed.

It's got some, military memorial memorabilia where you can see tracing

my father's time in the military.

The different units, the different assignments, and then it's got

some of his personal artifacts that are gonna be in display letters.

Signage, photographs, all of these things are going to be provided to the public

and it'll have a QR code system where you can go and get more information

about some of the displays and artifacts.

And we're scheduling to cut that in, February of next year

during Black History Month.

Wow, outstanding.

I, I wanna known, I, wish I had the number in front of me, but, there are

literally thousands of names of black law enforcement professionals on the National

Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, DC and, and as I said, we have

this special exhibit in our national law enforcement museum that focuses on, Lucius

Amerson and the story of the first black sheriff since reconstruction in the South.

But, clearly.

black law enforcement officers are prevalent in every

community in this country.

They're serving, they're protecting, and they're sacrificing.

And I'm so glad to hear there's gonna be a memorial specifically devoted to black

law enforcement professionals, their stories, their sacrifice, very important

part of what we're trying to do here.

your father was an amazing man.

and very courageous, but I have to believe that there were times, despite

the 80% or more blacks in his county, that the Klan and other whites,

with their bigotry, at the time, must have made it difficult for him.

Are there any stories that come to mind when we talk about the

challenges he faced from, the, bigotry in the south at the time?

Believe it or not, most of the bigotry that he faced was

from other African American people.

Huh, okay.

The shootout that I talked about involved an African American man who was drunk

and was being processed into the jail, disowned a deputy, and started shooting

and he was calling and my father happened to be in the jail at that

time, and he was calling him by name.

Come out.

Come out, no wanna have conflict.

My father was able to, escape through an exit in a jail.

And this guy basically ran out of bullets.

And after he ran out of bullets, he, he changed into a somber tone when

he came outside and saw all of these law enforcement folks in the middle

of the night with lights shining on the jail and got guns drawn at.

And, he changed his, perspective then, and he was more humbling, but for

some reason, during his, surrender.

Some of the other law enforcement officials who knew this individual did

not want to handcuff them and restrain him after just taking siege of the jail.

And my father's response was he used his firearm to, basically

strike this individual because he felt like he was still a threat

and he was not being restrained.

And this individual went and filed a civil lawsuit for police

brutality against my fault.

Wow.

Believe it or not, it was the National Sheriff's Association that stood up for my

father and all law enforcement officials because they said if we now penalize

sheriffs for doing their authority.

That it would create a legal precedence where it would make other sheriffs

vulnerable if they were in the same situation and his case was dismissed,

as a result of the advocacy from other law enforcement officials and from, an

attorney general at the time who was very supportive of what my father was doing.

Believe it or not, most of the, conflict that he faced was from the

African American community than the white community after the 1960s.

And it went into the 1970s, it was more normalized to have black sheriffs

because for the most part, most of the, the, economic basis in the

south were not in black counties.

They were in more of the major.

Counties in the south, like Atlanta, Birmingham.

So those were areas where some of the, people in the

community decided to retreat to.

And they just basically left the black counties alone, have their own leadership,

own mayors, things of that sort.

So it, was a very interesting part of history to see the dynamics

of people from his own race were opposed to, or were trying to,

Devalue his authority.

I know you were, you and I were discussing some of the reforms

that we learned about, that were made.

Perhaps you wanna get into that a little bit with Anthony here as we come to a

close of this very intriguing discussion.

Yeah, I think, the idea was he took a lot of the military, experience.

What he had learned, working in the military and, applied some of those

disciplines, codes of conduct, et cetera.

I, think he was very innovative in, in terms of what he did as sheriff.

Not just being the first black sheriff, but somebody that really started

to make the Macon County Sheriff's Office a more professionalized.

Yeah, absolutely.

the experience that he took from the military was so invaluable,

for him, even after he left.

Having rules and regulations, standard operating procedures, uniformity,

code of conduct for behavior for his deputies was the foundation

that he established for his office.

And it allowed his office to scale up his operations very quickly.

originally his staff was maybe three people, and then eventually they got 5, 6,

7, and then other people were added to it.

His reforms reform basic, as they were considered, were very

instrumental in setting up the basic operation for sheriff's office.

Now, most of the sheriffs in the country today don't have jails, but back then, in

those rural areas, the sheriff had jails.

They had to support the courts.

They had to support, evictions.

They had to support all of these other services, so him having some reform,

the reform measures that he put in place were very instrumental in allowing him

to do his job more efficiently as well as create more transparency in the community.

Excellent.

just a closing comment really, and I'll turn it over to Dennis

to, to get us outta here.

But the bottom line is, citizens behind the badge, is proud to be

able to partner with the National Black Sheriff's Association.

There's a lot of common ground, certainly the mental health issues,

certainly the recruitment of, good, young people to become a part of

the law enforcement profession.

strengthening the relationship.

Between the community and law enforcement.

All right.

And a lot of that deals with race.

there's been some racial tension obviously in communities around this

country as some of these high profile incidents have gotten a lot of attention.

I think we have a lot of work still to do in that area and, I think together.

Citizens behind the badge and the National Black Sheriff's

Association can do some good.

Anthony, I'm so glad you reached out to me.

so honored really that you're able to join us here today, to

talk about these important issues.

so thank you, sir.

Thank you Craig.

And thank you for your platform and what you're doing.

We have to step up and speak out on some of these issues because as the

society is reshaping, we have to put the voice out there so folks can start

becoming more normalized to the way things are going to look and to raise

more attention on the importance of law enforcement in ensuring as civil society

can operate that it needs to operate.

So thank you for everything you're doing.

Thank you so much for reaching out.

Again, it's Heroes.

Behind the Badge are, sponsored by Citizens Behind the Badge.

Citizens Behind the Badge is the leading voice of the American people in support

of the men and women of law enforcement.

For Heroes Behind the Badge, Craig Floyd and Bill Erfurth.

We'll see you next time.

This is Dennis Collins signing off.