Staff Report – WS Chronicle
Robert Grier, one of eight Black men whose service changed the history of firefighting in Winston-Salem and across North Carolina, has died at the age of 104.
The Winston-Salem Fire Department announced Grier’s death Sunday, remembering the retired sergeant as a pioneer who helped integrate the department more than 75 years ago.
Grier was not simply a man who worked for the fire department. He belonged to a small group of men who entered a public institution that had not previously made room for them—and helped change it from the inside.
On March 1, 1951, Winston-Salem hired Grier and seven other African American firefighters to form an integrated fire company at Engine Company No. 4 on Dunleith Avenue.
The eight men were Raphael Black, Willie Carter, Lester Ervin, John Henry Ford, Robert Grier, John Meredith, George Penn and John Thomas. Their hiring created Winston-Salem’s first integrated fire company and, according to the city, the first integrated fire company in North Carolina.
They joined the department during the Jim Crow era, nearly three years before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Brown v. Board of Education and more than a decade before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Their uniforms did not erase segregation. Their appointments did not immediately create equality. But their presence represented a breach in a system that had long denied Black residents access to many of the city’s most stable and respected public-service jobs.
Grier and the other members of Engine Company No. 4 carried the responsibility of fighting fires while also confronting the assumptions of a segregated city. Every alarm they answered and every shift they completed offered an answer to those who had questioned whether Black men belonged in the department.
They did.
Grier remained with the Winston-Salem Fire Department for approximately 30 years and rose to the rank of sergeant before retiring.
The department would not become fully integrated until November 1967—more than 16 years after Grier and the seven other men began their service.
That timeline places Grier’s contribution in its proper context. He was not hired after the work of integration had been completed. He was one of the men required to do that work.
A final birthday salute
Only months before his death, firefighters from Winston-Salem, Kernersville and surrounding communities gathered to celebrate Grier’s 104th birthday.
Fire trucks passed his home in a surprise parade, their lights flashing and sirens sounding as Grier watched from outside and waved to the crews. The tribute recognized both his three decades of service and his place among the men who broke the color barrier within the department.
The moment connected generations.
The firefighters riding in those trucks entered a department transformed by the courage of Grier and his colleagues. Many of them have served alongside Black captains, battalion chiefs, inspectors, firefighters and other leaders because eight men reported to Engine Company No. 4 in 1951 and refused to allow segregation to define the limits of their service.
That is the deeper meaning of Grier’s life.
His legacy is found not only in photographs, plaques or historical records. It is present whenever a young Black child sees firefighting as a possible future. It is present whenever a department reflects more of the community it has sworn to protect. And it is present in every public institution that has been forced to reconsider who is qualified to serve, lead and belong.
Preserving the full story
Winston-Salem has a long and important history of Black public service, but much of that history is too often remembered only after one of its pioneers has died.
Grier’s passing should prompt more than condolences. It should renew the community’s commitment to documenting the experiences of the men who integrated the department, preserving their photographs and oral histories, and teaching their story to future firefighters and local students.
The city’s official history identifies all eight members of the pioneering company, but their individual experiences deserve fuller public recognition.
What were their first days inside the station like? How were they treated by their fellow firefighters? How did their families carry the pressure that came with their service? What fires did they fight, and what obstacles did they encounter while seeking promotions and assignments?
Those stories are not side notes in Winston-Salem history. They are Winston-Salem history.
In recent years, other members of that first company have also been remembered following their deaths. Willie Carter, another of the eight pioneering firefighters, died in 2021. The passing of these men underscores the urgency of preserving firsthand accounts while surviving relatives, colleagues and community members are still able to tell them.
Grier lived long enough to see the institution he helped integrate honor him publicly.
He saw fire engines line the street outside his home. He saw younger firefighters salute his service. He saw the door he helped open remain open for generations who came behind him.
Robert Grier answered his first call in a segregated city.
Seventy-five years later, Winston-Salem remembers him as one of the men who helped change it.