County's First African-American Law Officer Dies

A pioneering African-American law enforcement officer -- who was told in the 1950s that blacks weren’t wanted on local police forces – has died.

The Capital-Gazette reports that George Phelps Jr. died Thursday morning; he was in his 80s. Phelps was the first African-American to work as a law enforcement officer in Anne Arundel County, the newspaper says.

When Phelps applied for jobs as a police officer with the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County departments in the pre-Civil Rights years, he was told not to apply. Instead, he was hired as a deputy Anne Arundel County Sheriff by Joseph W. Alton Jr.

Phelps served as a deputy for 25 years until he retired in 1976, the newspaper says.

In 1968, during the unrest that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Phelps was credited for helping to keep the peace in Annapolis, along with community leaders such as then Mayor Roger “Pip” Moyer and Joseph “Zastrow” Simms.

»Photo of George Phelps Jr., from the Opportunities Industrialization Center of Anne Arundel County website