News Flash

North Carolina’s Leading Black Law-Enforcement Officers Marking Black History Month with First-Ever Meeting Feb. 1

For the first time ever, the top law-enforcement officers for North Carolina’s six largest cities and six largest counties are all African Americans, and to mark the occasion, they will gather at 10 a.m. Monday, Feb. 1, in Greensboro to mark Black History Month and tour the International Civil Rights Center & Museum on the 61st anniversary of the start of the Greensboro Sit-in.

Scheduled to attend are the police chiefs for Charlotte, Durham, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Raleigh and Winston-Salem, and the sheriffs for Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford, Durham, Forsyth and Cumberland counties. Also attending will be Col. Glenn M. McNeill, the head of the N.C. State Highway Patrol, and Sheriff Paula Dance of Pitt County, who is the first elected African American female county sheriff in North Carolina.

The meeting was initiated by Winston-Salem Police Chief Catrina Thompson. “This will be a historic moment in our state’s history,” Thompson said. “We will celebrate the progress in our state by assembling the African American chiefs of police and county sheriffs in our six largest counties, as well as the colonel of the N.C. State Highway Patrol and the first elected African American female sheriff in North Carolina, all serving across our state at the same time.

“Additionally, it is appropriate for us to celebrate this moment at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum and to do it on February 1, 2021, exactly 61 years after the sit-in movement of the Civil Rights era started.”

After touring the museum, the group will have lunch at Luxe restaurant and discuss topics of mutual interest.