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Black History Month Observance Remembers Springfield's First Black Firefighter

WAMC

         A Black History Month observance Thursday honored the first Black firefighter in Springfield, Massachusetts.     

        Noting the ranks of the Springfield Fire Department are now more than 50 percent minority and that three Blacks have been promoted to district chief since January, Mayor Domenic Sarno called Leonard  Corbin “ the Jackie Robinson of the Springfield Fire Department.”

         "Lenny Corbin, who was much much respected, admired, a firefighter's firefighter," said Sarno.

         Corbin joined the fire department in 1969, a time of violent racial strife in Springfield and the country.

    A permanent memorial to Corbin was dedicated at the Mason Square Fire Station in 2009, a year after he died.

 

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.