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The Republic
Langdon Alexander has always considered the East Valley home. Raised in Gilbert, the Afro-Latino always wanted to pursue a career in firefighting. Now, as the head of the East Valley Black Firefighters Association, he helps fight fires in the Valley and pushes for more diversity among their ranks.
He attended East Valley Institute of Technology where he trained in the fire and emergency service program in hopes of becoming a firefighter. He went on to study at Mesa Community College Fire Academy alongside his brother, but as his brother was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, his training took a pause.
His brother survived and helped motivate him to graduate and begin working at Buckeye’s Fire Medical Rescue Department in 2011 at the age of 19.
Now a fire captain with the Mesa Fire & Medical Department, Alexander serves down the road from his high school at Mesa’s Fire Station 218.
From Buckeye to Mesa, Alexander has provided more than a decade of service to the East Valley. But within the last couple of years, he’s looked to assist his community in a new way.
A focus within the Valley’s Black community
In 2019, he joined the East Valley Hispanic Bomberos as their community outreach board member. In 2022, a year after the Bomberos shut down, he joined seven others and founded the East Valley Black Firefighters Association.
“Dedicated to providing effective mentorship to all those interested in a career in the fire service. We focus on involvement and development in our African American communities, fostering promotion and advancement within our departments and promoting overall well-being for all our members,” their mission reads on the website.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the earliest record of Black people being permitted to be firefighters was back in 1817, when free men of color and slaves were recruited to help with a New Orleans fire. A year later, Molly Williams, the first Black woman, volunteered to help a fire company in New York City.
Sixty years later, the first paid Black fire company was formed in Chicago. Today, the International Association of Black Professional Fire Fighters represents over 8,000 Black firefighters and 180 chapters.
The East Valley Black Firefighters Association covers 10 cities: Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, Tempe, Scottsdale, Superstition, Queen Creek, Maricopa, Casa Grande and Salt River.
“Our whole goal was we want to help individuals get hired in the fire department and give them the tools necessary, while really focusing within the Black community,” Alexander said.
They accomplish this by regularly hosting mock interviews, monthly meetings, nutrition classes, assigning mentors to fire cadets, providing practice equipment, monthly physical fitness instructions and doing community service.
‘Go above and beyond’
Adam Kreuger, a four-year paramedic and firefighter at Mesa Station 218, was one of the founding members alongside Alexander.
“It’s been really rewarding. Just to see where we started out, we generally would have like two to three people come in,” Kreuger said. “The more we’re out in the community, the more we get support. Just word of mouth spreads and more people that are interested, they come out and they’re eager to learn and want to work hard.”
Outside of the department, the East Valley Black Firefighters Association works to empower minority communities. From supporting Black businesses to partnering with nonprofits. However, the biggest priority for Alexander is educating young people in the East Valley and helping them reach their potential.
“A lot of them just don’t realize the opportunities, whether it’s fire department or somewhere else in the world, what they can accomplish,” Alexander said.
The association did face challenges in its early stages as it built the group from the ground up.
“It was very difficult. Luckily, I had helped that other group start up, so I had a lot of good ideas. But the hard part, for one, is finding Black involvement within the few firefighters that we do have. Some of the cities within our 10-city group had zero Black firefighters or maybe one Black firefighter,” Alexander said.
There were many 18-hour workdays during the beginning stages of the organization, as Alexander was studying to become captain and juggling family life.
“He demonstrates all the key characteristics that the department sort of stands for … being out for the community, being caring and showing passion for everything he’s involved with. He tries to go above and beyond to help guys get hired,” Kreuger said.
Watching a community grow
Since its founding, the East Valley Black Firefighters Association has helped 15 Black firefighters get hired —the equivalent of their total members when they first started. In total, the association has been involved in the hiring of 27 firefighters, with more potentially on the way as they have tracked over 200 applicants on their website.
As the years go by, the association has developed partnerships with several nonprofits and organizations like Arizona Spread Your Wings Foundation, Arizona Diamondbacks, National Forum for Black Public Administrators and the NAACP. The organizations also receives support from individuals, like NFL players, mayors and Valley city councilmembers.
Due to the growth of the association, members have been able to host Juneteenth, Martin Luther King Jr. and Christmas events, as well as back-to-school drives and more. By their second year, they had accumulated over 700 hours of community service.
Though he noted stations, like the ones in Mesa, are doing a phenomenal job of recruiting Black firefighters, there are still many stations that they are hoping to improve. Several departments still have only one or two Black firefighters, like Salt River and Superstition. “It has improved well — not great, but it is a slow process,” he said.
Though he has been able to initiate change in the community around him, he noted that this experience has also impacted him.
“It taught me how to be humble, to truly realize what people need outside of the little world that we live in. And I would say that those two things are the biggest is just realizing how much there is in the world and how much you can really help,” he said.
One of his favorite memories was when everyone in the association put their funds together to furnish an apartment in Chandler housing three families. After going to Goodwill, they completely furnished the house that at one point didn’t have a “single piece of furniture.”
”Seeing those changes on people’s faces, it’s not just bringing people into the fire department, but those moments out there that I think keep all of us thriving because you truly see the difference in how much it means for how little it took us to accomplish it,” Alexander said.
