Henry S. Randolph, Sr. was a detective-investigator in the office of the Brooklyn District Attorney back in the 1950s, when it was rare to find African Americans in such positions.
It's believed Randolph was the first black person to carry the shield of a County Detective, as the investigators were commonly known in those days.
Having been a Democratic precinct captain steeped in local politics -- commonplace for civil servants in that era -- Randolph perhaps felt a certain peace and pride inside when he passed away in Atlanta, Ga.
He died on Nov. 5th, the day after the election of Barack Obama.
Former Appellate Division Judge William Thompson -- who also happens to be the father of New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson, who has declared his candidacy for New York City mayor next year -- remembers Randolph well and had the highest praise for his skills as a detective.
Judge Thompson, speaking of half a century ago when he was a defense attorney, said he would have a sinking feeling in his stomach whenever he learned Randolph was working with prosecutors on a case Thompson was involved in.
"Randolph was the kind of guy who would go anywhere he had to, and he'd find witnesses that we thought couldn't be located. He was able to drag them up no matter where they were," Thompson recalled.
Randolph's family said that the investigator sometimes also gave stomach aches to the very prosecutors he worked for.
"When he met with adversity relative to promotions, he even took on the District Attorney himself and eventually the Governor of New York to rectify agency inequities," the Randolph family said in the obituary they wrote up in Atlanta.
Despite his willingness to rebel when he felt he was wronged -- or perhaps because of it -- Randolph climbed the ladder in the District Attorney's office.
"He became the first African American Rackets Investigator in that office and later achieved the position of Senior Rackets Investigator and eventually Deputy Chief Investigator and head of the Consumer Fraud Division," the family wrote.
Randolph served under the regimes of former Brooklyn District Attorneys Ed Silver, Aaron Koota and Eugene Gold. He began working in the office in 1952 and retired in 1979.
But his time as a detective was merely a few chapters in the book that was Randolph's action-filled life.
He entered the army in 1941, serving in the European theater during World War II and emerging with the rank of Second Lieutenant.
Here's what his family says of his service:
"In the European Theatre of Operations, as Magazine and Depot Commander, he had the responsibility of transporting troops and supplies. At one point he was briefly brought up on insubordination charges because he had refused to follow the route all other supply transporters were directed to take, a usually fatal route. His superiors learned that Lieutenant Randolph had utilized his resources to find a safer and quicker route. The supplies reached waiting soldiers ahead of anticipated schedule, with no loss of man or machine along the way. He was awarded the European African Middle Eastern
Theatre Campaign Ribbon for his efforts."
After the war, Randolph moved to Brooklyn (he was born in Newark, New Jersey) and, among other things, he was a photographer in the Brooklyn bureau of the Amsterdam News, opened his own photography studio, operated a beauty salon, drove a cab and was a merchant marine.
And, yes, there was the job that meant most of all: He was a husband, and was the father of two sons (both graduates of Yale College) who thought the world of him and cared for him in his last years of life.
Older son Henry S. Randolph, Jr. is a contractor and younger son Dr. Erich Randolph is a physician. Both are in Georgia.
The former detective, who in his retirement worked in his son Henry, Jr.'s company, leaves behind his beloved wife, Annie Marietta Smith Randolph, his grandchildren and many other relatives who mourn him.
Henry, Jr.'s wife Felicia Jeter, a journalist, worked with the sons in researching the departed detective's life and putting together his rich and interesting biography.
[Disclosure: We are a longtime friend and former classmate of Henry S. Randolph, Jr.]
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