Why the New York Fire Department canceled its Black History Month celebration

When the fire department wanted to commemorate Black History Month this year, a worthy distinction seemed obvious: Robert O. Lowery, New York City’s first black fire commissioner, who was appointed by Mayor John V. Lindsay nearly sixty years ago.

A documentary about Mr. Lowery’s life was scheduled to premiere on Tuesday as the centerpiece of the Black History Month celebration, which ends this week. But the event was abruptly canceled after Mr. Lowery’s family protested the film’s failure to more fully involve the Vulcan Society, the influential black firefighters’ association.

“My father wouldn’t have been a fire commissioner without the Vulcan Society,” said Gertrude Erwin, Mr. Lowery’s daughter.

The cancellation of the screening of “The First: Fire Commissioner Robert O. Lowery’s Story” marks a difficult turn of events for an agency still struggling to overcome decades of racism and homogeneity in its ranks. All but one of the 23 chiefs of staff are white men, while about 10 percent of a city’s firefighters are black whose population is approximately 23 percent black.

The department first approached Mr. Lowery’s daughters about making the documentary about 20 years after his death at about 6 p.m. ceremony Last year he renamed the hall in his memory.

The family was admissible, provided the department met certain conditions.

“We made it very clear from the beginning that the Vulcan Society was a core element in telling my uncle’s story and that it was expected that the Vulcan Society would play a role in the film,” said Chris Lowery, the nephew from the fire commissioner.

Although the film discusses the 84-year-old organization’s historical role, the lack of focus on the group’s current efforts wrongly suggests that the issue of racism in the fire service is a relic of the past rather than an ongoing concern. Lowery said.

“You have to close the loop,” he said. “How do you talk about the past without recognizing that the present is still open – that the past has not yet been resolved?”

The department, which conceived and produced the documentary, defended its work, saying in a statement that it was committed to releasing the documentary “to ensure the film is visible to all.”

“We have worked with the Lowery family since the beginning, trying to honor their wishes and tell a great story about Commissioner Lowery,” the statement said. “It was a well-intentioned project from the start and until recently intended to be shown to a small audience before being released via stream.”

Last year, the department’s Black History Month commemoration also revolved around Mr. Lowery, with the department’s current commissioner, Laura Kavanagh, spearheading the auditorium’s renaming. Ms. Kavanagh was chosen by Mayor Eric Adams in 2022 to become the first woman to lead the department.

The tension surrounding the documentary may be somewhat sensitive for Mr. Adams, the city’s second black mayor, who once led a fraternal group representing black police officers.

The Vulcan Society has been instrumental in efforts to force the city to hire more Black and Latino firefighters, including filing a lawsuit that led the city to pay nearly $100 million to New Yorkers in 2014 who wanted to join the department but were stymied by systemic bias.

The fire department continues to have internal struggles under Ms. Kavanagh, some of which are detailed in a lawsuit filed by four of its top chiefs that suggested her leadership left the department with “an unimaginable level of unpreparedness.”

Robert Lowery, who died in 2001 at age 85, had a storied career that included firefighter, fire chief and at least two terms as president of the Vulcan Society.

Regina Wilson, the association’s current president, said the chapter approached her last year asking if she wanted to be involved in the documentary, and she agreed.

Then, earlier this month, she heard about an upcoming screening of the film through unofficial channels. Three days later, on February 15, an invitation arrived.

Another five days passed before the department invited her for an interview, ostensibly for a review of the documentary, Ms. Wilson said. She refused.

“You can’t just record us and throw us in the back of the movie as if this organization is an afterthought,” Ms. Wilson said.

Later that week, the department notified Ms. Wilson that the viewing had been canceled and would be rescheduled.

The family and the Vulcan Society have suggested that the department conduct a more thorough re-examination and schedule the viewing for Mr. Lowery’s birthday, April 20.

Mr. Lowery was appointed by Mayor Lindsay in 1966 and became the first black fire commissioner of a major American city. He served for nearly seven years during a period when arson-related fires raged through the city’s nonwhite neighborhoods.

Towards the end of his life he took up writing. In an essay written in 1988, he said the department was still “light years away from achieving” racial equality.

“It is clear that the more things change, the more they stay the same,” he wrote.