Beverly Joyce Bailey Harvard (born December 22, 1950) is a former police chief of

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

, and the first black female police chief of a major city in the United States.

Biography

Beverly Joyce Bailey was born in Macon, Georgia, on December 22, 1950, the youngest of seven children. At the age of 22, she graduated from Morris Brown College in Atlanta with a Bachelor of Arts in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

. In 1973, her husband, Jimmy, and one of his friends bet her $100 that she could not become a police officer. She accepted the bet and was hired as an officer in the Atlanta Police Department, where she spent several years performing night foot patrols in high-crime areas. In 1979, she was promoted to affirmative action specialist and then to director of public affairs in 1980, where she handled media inquiries regarding the Atlanta child murders. Her performance handling the media resulted in a promotion to deputy police chief in 1982. Harvard was offered the position of

Atlanta Chief of Police There have been many police chiefs of the Atlanta Police Department in the history of Atlanta, Georgia United States. The city shifted from a rural, Marshal/Deputy Marshal model in 1873. The current interim police chief is Darin Schierbaum. Th ...

in 1994 and was officially confirmed by the city council on October 26, 1994, becoming the first black woman to be a police chief of any major city in the United States. During her tenure as police chief, she dealt with several high-profile incidents, including a corruption scandal, the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, and the 1997

Otherside Lounge bombing The Otherside Lounge bombing was a domestic terrorist pipe bombing attack that occurred on February 21, 1997, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. At approximately 9:45 p.m., a bomb exploded at the Otherside Lounge lesbian bar that damaged ...

. She chose not to reapply for the position in 2002, instead choosing to become the Deputy Federal Security Director for the

Transportation Security Administration The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within, and connecting to the United States. It was created ...

Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport , also known as Atlanta Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport, Atlanta Airport, Hartsfield, Hartsfield–Jackson and, formerly, as the Atlanta Municipal Airport, is the primary internatio ...

. In 2010, Harvard was nominated by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

to become the

United States Marshal The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforc ...

for the

Northern District of Georgia The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (in case citations, N.D. Ga.) is a United States district court which serves the residents of forty-six counties. These are divided up into four divisions. Appeals from cases ...

, a position that she held until 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harvard, Beverly Living people Chiefs of the Atlanta Police Department Morris Brown College alumni Georgia State University alumni 1950 births African-American police officers African Americans in Georgia (U.S. state) American women police officers People from Macon, Georgia

Biography

See also

References