The City of Atlanta is mourning the loss of William H. Hamer, the city’s first Black fire chief and one of its first Black firefighters.
According to an obituary published by Murray Bros. Funeral Home, the public figure died on Saturday, July 10. He was 85 years old.
An Alabama native, Hamer began his firefighting career after being selected as one of 16 Black firefighters to integrate the Atlanta Fire Rescue in April 1963. The recruits were assigned to Fire Station No. 16, which was constructed on the former property of another trailblazer, Theodore “Tiger” Flowers, the world’s first African-American middleweight champion.
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