In honor of Alwin Benjamin Holman’s 100th birthday, the City of San Diego officially declared December 26 as Alwin Benjamin Holman Day.
Holman was the first Black San Diego firefighter to serve in a station other than Station 19 in the historically Black Southcrest neighborhood, instead joining an all-white San Diego fire station in 1951, breaking the SDFD color barrier. Holman served with the SDFD for 32 years, eventually becoming one of the first Black Battalion Fire Chiefs in California and the city’s first Black Deputy fire chief.
Born in Alton, Illinois in 1925, Holman joined the U.S. Navy in 1944 and was stationed in San Diego the next year. After working briefly for the U.S. Postal Service following World War II, Holman decided to pursue a career as a firefighter…