Alwin Holman, a trailblazing former San Diego firefighter who was the first to serve outside of Fire Station 19, the fire department’s historically segregated firehouse, has died months after celebrating his 100th birthday.<\/p>\n
Holman was assigned to Fire Station 14 in North Park and went on to serve the department for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the first African American allowed to work outside of Station 19 up until 1951, so segregation in our fire department was here until 1951 when Chief Corsor came in and said this needs to stop,\u201d said Jason Shanley, fire information officer for San Diego Fire-Rescue.<\/p>\n
Colleagues often referred to Holman as their \u201cJackie Robinson\u201d for his role in breaking barriers. Holman served the department for more than 30 years, helping change its culture for future generations in the fire department.<\/p>\n
His impact went far beyond his years of service. \u201cHe lived a really, really great life and left his family a legacy to be really proud of,\u201d said Shanley. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be missed by his children, his grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n
The department says progress has continued over the years \u2014 but there is still room to grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that’s important for us to remember is our history,\u201d Shanley said. \u201cWe\u2019re not where we were in 1951 \u2014 that’s a fact, but that doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t have more to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The department plans to honor Holman with a \u201clast alarm\u201d ceremony in the coming days, a tradition that includes a final radio call and bell ceremony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alwin Holman, a trailblazing former San Diego firefighter who was the first to serve outside of Fire Station…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[111943,11057,111944,74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-252018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-alwin-holman","9":"tag-fire-department","10":"tag-jason-shanley","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-headlines","13":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}