[Video] Meet Emma Christy Baker: First Black Female Officer on the Indianapolis Police Force

Emma Christy Baker blazed a path for African-American women when she became the first black female officer on the Indianapolis Police Department.

Baker received the same wage and probationary period as male officers.

Based on the recommendations in a 1917 report of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research that Indianapolis should employ policewomen to work outside the police station, thirteen policewomen (including two African-Americans) and a woman police sergeant were appointed to the Indianapolis Police Department at a special meeting of the Board of Public Safety on June 16, 1918.

During World War I, Emma and Clara Burnside became the first women to work outside the station, patrolling public places Downtown.

On June 15, 1918, Emma Baker became the first woman and the first black woman to be a police officer for the Indianapolis Police