Robert William Stewart – From Kentucky Slave to L.A. Cop

2022 UPDATE:  After this story was originally posted in 2016, Lt. Rita M. Knecht, LAPD, Ret., used her outstanding research skills to locate a wealth of information on the lives of Robert William Stewart, Joseph Henry Green and their families, as well as LAPD Chief John Malcolm Glass.  I have added the results of Lt. Knecht’s research in this blue font.  Thank you, Lt. Knecht, for contacting me and for your interest in L.A.’s first two black police officers.  Thanks also to genealogist Lyndsey Stewart for sharing Ellen Doty’s death certificate.  I am also grateful to a trio of Indiana librarians – Andrea Glenn at the Indiana State Library, Diane Stepro at the Jeffersonville Library, and Meghan Vaughn at the Floyd County Library – who were extremely helpful with researching Robert Stewart’s years in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Most importantly, at the urging of Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, on February 23, 2021, the Los Angeles Police Commission voted 5-0 to ceremonially reinstate Stewart as an officer and retire him with honor.  In addition, on February 2, 2022, the roll call room at LAPD’s Central Station was named for Stewart.  As of March 2022, however, the LAPD website’s history section still wrongly asserted that Robert Stewart was hired in 1886 and that he was the first black police officer in the United States.

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Robert William Stewart’s distinction as the Los Angeles Police Department’s first black officer was publicized in 1977 in Homer F. Broome, Jr.’s, LAPD’s Black History, 1886-1976.  Using the records available to him at the time – before old editions of Los Angeles newspapers and other resources were easily accessed via the Internet – Broome determined that Stewart had been hired in 1886 and that he stood 6 feet 4 inches and weighed 240 pounds.  Broome’s book also includes a few photos of Stewart.  Unfortunately, Broome was able to learn little else about him, including how long he stayed with the department, and this same scant information about Stewart has been repeated ever since.

When this story was first posted in 2016, the Los Angeles Police Department website said that Robert William Stewart and another man, Roy Green, were both hired in 1886 as the LAPD’s first African-American officers.  However, the exact evidence substantiating the 1886 date has never been published or even described.  In addition, Los Angeles city directories printed in 1886 and 1887 list the members of the Los Angeles Police Department, but neither Stewart nor Green is among them. 

Recent research using publicly available resources shows that Robert William Stewart and Joseph Henry Green – not Roy Green – were both appointed LAPD officers on March 30, 1889.  Stewart and Green definitely share the title of the first African-Americans on the LAPD, although three years later than previously believed.  Available documentation suggests that Stewart and Green were probably also the first black police officers in California.

Joseph Henry Green was dismissed from the LAPD on February 18, 1890, as part of a reduction in the size of the force.  Less has been discovered about his life than Stewart’s, but we know Green was born in North Carolina on October 30, 1850.  He was likely born a slave, possibly in Wilmington, NC, where he was living in 1870.  By 1876 Green was in San Francisco, working as a waiter at the new Palace Hotel.  He stayed at the Palace until about 1882 – also probably the year he was married – then spent around a year atop Nob Hill as butler for Mary Hopkins, widow of railroad baron Mark Hopkins. 

Green moved to Los Angeles by the end of 1883 and became head waiter at the Pico House.  Green helped to organize L.A.’s “Colored Republican Club” in 1886; his political activities helped him obtain the patronage appointment of Los Angeles City Hall janitor in 1887 and be chosen for the LAPD in 1889.  Following his short service as a police officer, Green went back to being a waiter, and by 1902 Green was head waiter at the Hotel Rosslyn on Main Street.  On Friday morning, July 17, 1903, Joseph Henry Green died at his home after what the Los Angeles Herald described as a “prolonged illness.”  His cause of death was given as kidney disease at age 52 years, 9 months, and 14 days, and he was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles.  He left a widow, Amanda, and daughters Lauretta and Cecil.

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Robert William Stewart was born a slave on March 1, 1850, near Lancaster, Garrard County, Kentucky (about 75 miles southeast of Louisville).  He was the eldest of his mother's 11 children, eight of whom lived to adulthood.  His parents were Faulkner Stewart (born c. 1804-1817, died 1900) and Ellen Doty (1830-1914), illiterate slaves who began living as husband and wife in 1849.  However, they could not marry until Kentucky legalized marriages for blacks in 1866. [1]  In September 1867, after most of their children had been born, Faulkner and Ellen received a Commonwealth of Kentucky “Declaration of Marriage of Negroes and Mulattoes.”  It cost 50 cents to have their union officially recorded, plus another 25 cents for the certificate, significant amounts for newly freed slaves. [2]  

This photo of Robert William Stewart was likely taken when he was in his twenties.