Aug. 31, 1964 - At 3 p.m. today, 5-year-old James Moore spotted his hero on the street, broke away from his mother, and ran over to shake hands.
The hero is a policeman, Captain Lloyd Sealy (pictured left) of the 28th Precinct in Harlem. Like the boy, he is a Negro.
Almost as soon as James Moore finished shaking hands, two other children rushed up to Captain Sealy, recognizing him from his pictures in the newspaper and on television.
The incident is noteworthy because in the past, Harlem children have not rushed to introduce themselves to policemen.
But it was only part of another long day for Captain Sealy, the first Negro to head a Harlem precinct.
Captain Sealy, whose appointment followed the riots in Harlem in July, is a practical man. He does not believe that he or any other policeman can change the basic problems of Harlem. But he does believe that the relationship between Harlem residents and the police can be better than it is.
Thus, the 47-year-old officer has been spending most of his time talking to the people of Harlem about policemen — what they are like and why they are there. At the same time, he has sought to explain to the white policemen in his command about Harlem — how it differs from other communities and how it resembles them.
The 28th is a tough workshop in human relations. In its 0.56 square miles are crowded 82,000 people, most of them Negroes. Captain Sealy has about 300 patrolmen, of whom 80% are white.
To many Harlem residents, the white policeman is an object of suspicion — the representative of the white man’s law. Thus, when a white policeman arrests a Negro, bystanders will often brush aside the merits of the case and take the side of the Negro.
“I try to explain to the Negro groups that all of us are human beings,” says Captain Sealy, “with the virtues and failings of human beings, men with families trying to their job right.
“I try to suggest to the people that they be a little friendlier, that they try to talk informally with the police, say hello to them, so that maybe they can take some of the edge off the relationship and make it a little more human.”
In talking to white policemen, Captain Sealy takes the same approach, encouraging them to talk informally with the Negroes, to establish contacts other than those concerned with correcting violations of the law.
Many of the white policemen, he says, bring with them the attitudes of their own communities and stereotypes of Harlem and Negroes.
“So, you don’t expect to break anything down overnight,” he concludes. “You work on the little things, and you try to improve the communications and enforce the law. That’s about all a policeman can do here, and I try to go about my job as a policeman.”
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