Second in a series

Re “Honoring Forte for Being One of a Kind”

James Forte, honored yesterday by the African American Firefighter Museum, downtown Los Angeles, did not set out to make history in the culturally stormy 1960s.

He rang up two ground-moving firsts that never will be equaled in the 100-year history of Culver City.

In addition to being the first black police officer and the first black firefighter in Culver City history, Mr. Forte may be the softest, most precisely spoken officer or firefighter of any culture before or since.

He brought the exactly right disposition to his date with history.

This is a central reason he is revered today, half of Culver City’s history later.

Texas-born, he was trained in a religious tradition that took.

Faithfully, meticulously, his religious loyalty illumines his daily path to this day.

In his middle 20s in the middle ‘60s, he was hitting his stride professionally – and personally — with a loving wife and three little heirs.

“I had no intention of becoming a police officer,” Mr. Forte said, “because I was a carpenter making quite a bit of money, $200 more than police officers.”

This was the “however” interlude in Mr. Forte’s 77 brimming years.

“After I became 27 years old,” he said, “I decided to look for a job where I could get full retirement benefits for my family.”

He would weigh city government positions that started at $600 a month against the $850 he was earning as a carpenter.

Would Mr. Forte, black, encounter discrimination in a Culver City that was white?

(To be continued)