GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — James Hill said he didn’t realize his mother was in law enforcement until he was in junior high school. She worked as a juvenile officer and had peers who ran into her.
“I’d have some kids in school with me, and I was at South at this point in this time, come up and talk to me about meeting my mother and how she was a really nice lady and had really nice things to say but she was really mean at times,” Hill said during a Zoom interview on Tuesday afternoon. “Yeah, that’s when I realized she was an officer and had an impact with people I knew.”
Hill sat next to his daughter Jayme during the Zoom interview. They both spoke about his mother, her grandmother, Harriet Woods Hill, who became the Grand Rapids Police Department's first Black woman officer.
“She was tiny and mighty,” Jayme said.
They both laughed.
“As I always tell people my mother was no joke,” James said. “She was very loving but could be very serious, very strict, and she had a way of interacting with individuals to bring out whatever she needed to bring out. She was a true detective in many ways.”
Tuesday night at 7p ET, her life and legacy will be the focus of virtual conversation hosted by the Gerald R. Ford Foundation. It’s a part of the Women In Uniform series going on at the museum currently.
“I stumbled across her story just doing some research trying to think outside the box with regard to the Women in Uniform piece,” said Brooke Clement, director of the Ford Presidential Museum and Library. “I saw a story in the fall about the mural that was unveiled at the police department, reading through it and hearing her back story and getting to know Mr. Hill, everything that we have learned of her has just been more and more impactful. She is an inspiration.”
Last year, GRPD unveiled a mural that had been painted on their headquarters building in honor of Harriet.
James will be the guest speaker for the virtual event. Jayme will be watching.
“She was tiny and mighty”@PresGeraldRFord to hold virtual event at 7p about @GrandRapidsPD first Black woman officer: Harriet Woods Hill.
— Lauren Edwards (@LaurenEdwardsTV) February 15, 2022
Her son James is the guest speaker. // @FOX17 pic.twitter.com/Qsyoojrwsi
“I can't imagine what it was like for her as an African American first of all but a female to walk in and ask for that job, like to be brave enough knowing the answer is probably going to be ’no,’” Jayme said.
However, the answer was yes.
Harriet was at first a typist and then years later she became a juvenile officer. In both roles she endured racism, they said.
“She was a pioneer. As I look back, it’s like the folks that moved West way back when. You see them in the movies. They were moving into territory that they had never been before and it wasn’t very hospitable to them,” he said. “Mom did the same thing. She moved into the GRPD and there were good people and bad people.”
Nevertheless, she persevered, they said. Harriet rose in the ranks to become a detective and was with GRPD for 30 years. She passed away in 2006.
The Hills hope her story inspires others to break barriers just as she had.
“I think it’s amazing that Gerald R. Ford has decided to use my grandmother as one to represent and use her legacy. I’m excited to see it you talk tonight dad,” Jayme said.
“So am I,” he replied. They both laughed again.
