I WAS JUST THINKING: Don Stafford, trailblazer, remembered for leadership, steadfastness, impact

By Norma Adams-Wade

Don Stafford was a staple as a Dallas Police Department Black pioneer for more than 30 years from 1960 to 1991. He left his mark on local African-American history and the City of Dallas and now has joined the ancestor.

Stafford, a U. S. Air Force veteran in the 1950s, rose through the ranks from a rookie patrolman to become Dallas’ first African-American executive assistant Chief of Police. Prior to that achievement, he had been the first African-American to attain the rank of lieutenant, from which he ascended to the #2 top position in the Dallas Force.

This respected, quiet-spoken, and resolute leader was born December 14, 1934 and grew up on a rural southeast Texas farm near Rusk, Texas. He died in Dallas September 16, 2024 at age 89 – almost reaching his 90th birthday.

Accolades and honors Chief Stafford joined the Dallas police force in 1960 and retired with glowing tributes as a police trailblazer in 1991. The Donald A. Stafford Media Conference Room at the Dallas police headquarters on Botham Jean Boulevard just south of downtown is named in his honor. Then he spent another decade as a deputy constable bailiff for Justice of the Peace Thomas Jones, in Dallas County Constable Pct. #7. He retired in 2002 after a decade there. The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dal- las named him among Dallas Black Living Legends in 1992. The Urban League of Greater Dallas and North Central Texas also honored him in 2012 for distinguished community service.

Farming after retirement I interviewed Chief Stafford in 2012 after he had retired. He spoke fondly of the grueling, sun-up to sun-down work of tending to farmland and farm animals on property he owned in Lancaster, TX — reminiscent of his childhood growing up on a southeast Texas farm.

“I’m working harder than I ever did, but for myself now and I enjoy the daily grind,” Chief Stafford said. “When you called me, I was cleaning out stalls. I have seven horses. I don’t ride them that much and they think they are human.”

I was just thinking…police work is tough and with little appreciation. So, what must it have been like when Stafford first stepped out in uniform to face the hostility and struggles that were rampant during that 1960s civil rights era. Dwight Eisenhower was U. S. President. Bob Thornton was Dallas Mayor, and Jesse Curry was Dallas police chief. But whatever Chief Stafford faced, he gained the reputation of dealing with it in a familiar let’s- get-this-done survival mode Black officers organize Paul Allen, a Viet Nam veteran and former Dallas Police patrolman in West Dallas, worked under Chief Stafford during the 1970s and 1980s. Allen is co-founder and former president of Dallas Black Peace Officers Association, also known as the Texas Peace Officers Association. In the early 1990s, after Allen left the police force, he co-founded the Buffalo Soldiers Dallas County Lancaster Chapter – a group that mentors youths and commemorates Black soldiers who served on the frontier shortly after the Civil War.

“The department at that time was against Black officers organizing,” Allen recalled of the Black police group. “But he (Stafford) quietly supported the Black Police Association…. and helped lots of Black officers …Some would get harsher punishment than White officers when they got in trouble….He (Stafford) would quietly find ways to help them… and prevent them from getting fired.…He also quietly helped a lot of efforts in the Black community.”

“He never sought publicity or interview,” Allen added. “He preferred to just do what he could quietly.” Ready to help, even to the end Chief Stafford was truly a man of service and willing to go the extra mile, even in his waning years. During that last interview with him, the former chief made it clear he considered himself available to help if someone needed him.

“I’m available to anyone who want to call and who feels I can be of help,” Chief Stafford said. “My phone number is not secret. It’s in the phone book (in a family name).

He surely is now aiding the ancestors.

Norma Adams-Wade, is a proud Dallas native, University of Texas at Austin journalism graduate and retired Dallas Morning News senior staff writer. She is a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists and was its first southwest regional director. norma_adams_wade@yahoo.com.