It’s been more than a century since John Cheatham last walked out of a Minneapolis firehouse after serving more than 20 years as one of the city’s first Black firefighters and the city’s first Black fire captain.
And the street a block from his old station now bears his name.
Mayor Jacob Frey and current Fire Chief Bryan Tyner marked the redesignation on March 17, changing the name of Dight Avenue to Cheatham Avenue in a ceremony on 38th Street, surrounded by the descendants of one of the city’s first Black families.
“Captain John Cheatham is certainly a big set of shoulders for me to stand on,” said Tyner, who noted that it took more than 75 years for his department to appoint another Black firefighter to be captain. Tyner himself is the city’s first Black fire chief.