When they were hired, most appeared to have known they were making history. The family of Alvin Taylor of Palmetto, Fla., described him simply as “the first African-American in every appointment he attained.” A woman named Dorothy Allen in Saginaw, Mich., never knew of a black probation officer in her county, but in 1974, she applied anyway because she had a sociology degree, heard of an opening and needed the job. “Everybody knew who had which jobs,” her husband, Dempsey, said. “There could have been some judge’s nephew that wanted that job. We were shut out time and time again. But she went in there and got it.” They celebrated in Detroit that weekend, and decades later, he would put the line in her obituary: “First black probation officer in Saginaw County, Mich.
— The Lives They Lived - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com
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