A group of Black firefighters in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who spent much of the summer calling out racism in the city’s fire department felt vindicated by a cultural assessment report released last week.
The 20-page report, completed by a Charlotte-based race relations specialist, found no evidence that the Winston-Salem Fire Department is a racist organization. But it did cite existing racial and cultural tensions within the department.
“We are glad that they actually found out that there’s racism and that there are racists within the department, which is what we’ve been saying,” said Thomas Penn, a leading member of Omnibus, a group of Black firefighters in Winston-Salem that has lodged a grievance against the Fire Department. “We never said the Winston-Salem Fire Department was a racist organization. We said there are racists within the organization, and we actually named those individuals that we think are prime candidates for removal.”
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Omnibus formed in June and began publicly petitioning for sweeping reforms a month later, calling for several top-ranking Fire Department officials to be terminated. That included Fire Chief William Mayo, who the group said allowed a culture of hazing, intolerance and racial hostilities to fester inside the department for years without taking action.
Winston-Salem City Council hired WPR Consulting for $20,000 in August to address the allegations of systemic racism. The Black-owned diversity-equity consultant performed an assessment of the fire department’s racial climate.
The report laid out 19 reccommendations to alleviate that climate of hostility in the department.
“The WSFD, in and of itself, is not a racist organization,” it concluded. “However, there are individuals who are employed by the department who are viewed as racists. Multiple fire service staff — both Blacks and whites — who participated in the focus group discussions, alleged that racism and discrimination occurs in the department.”
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