Last updated: October 3, 2022
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Annie Simons
Annie Carolyn Reaves was born on February 17, 1943, in Brunswick County, North Carolina. In her youth, she took part in sit-ins at businesses in Durham during the Civil Rights movement. She was even arrested during one protest. At another, she found herself on stage near Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She taught home economics for four years in North Carolina, supporting people living in poverty.
She married Willie Simons on September 4, 1964, in Bertie, North Carolina. They had one daughter. Wanting to move from the country to the city, her husband moved to Washington, DC, shortly after their marriage. She joined him there around 1966. She worked as a teacher for a while, leaving the field after a student threw a nail at her and almost hit her in the head. She found a job with the US Postal Service, driving a 5-ton truck and collecting mail for the next two years.
Encouraged by a male officer she met on her route, Simons joined the US Park Police (USPP) on February 3, 1974. She was assigned to Anacostia Station, working from a cruiser rather than on foot patrol. She remembers being the only Black woman at the time, stating “I was the first Black woman to carry a gun for the US Park Police.” (She may not have been aware of Gertrude E. Wilson, the first Black policewoman, who retired in 1966). She remembered a gap of six months before another Black woman joined her, but Gwendolyn Winston started 15 days after she did. It’s possible, however, that Simons was referring only to women at Anacostia Station.
She recalled that most of the time she was on solo patrol due to staffing shortages, but when other officers were available, she was usually placed with another Black officer.
During that time, men didn’t want women as their partners. They didn’t feel secure having them as their partners. The guys wanted to make you prove yourself, that you were worthy of being an officer with them. So, they wouldn’t help you in any kind of way, you had to make your own way. When they called for backup, you would be the last one to be called.
Whenever there was a death, which meant a lot of paperwork, her male coworkers would make her “do the bulk of the work, whereas with other male partners they would share the load. So, it was kind of like you were on your own until things started to change somewhat when they started to accept the fact that they were going to have to deal with these women officers.”
Supervisors were equally unsupportive. “The officers, the leaders, would write you up for anything to make it more difficult for you.” Simons noted, “any little thing that we did as women, we would get written up.” One particularly unfair instance that she recalled happened when she was the USPP representative for the Federal Women's Program (FWP). She was written up for missing the start of her shift even though she had been approved to attend an FWP meeting. At the time repeated disciplinary action could lead to a pay deduction.
Despite these obstacles, Simons persevered and ended up with an 18-year career with the USPP. She received a disability retirement in 1990. She died from breast cancer on June 4, 2019, age 76.
Sources:
Ancestry.com. North Carolina, U.S., Birth Indexes, 1800-2000 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.Hill, D. (2019, March 26). A Women’s History Month Salute to Annie Simons. Praise 104.1. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://praisedc.com/1927056/a-womens-history-month-salute-to-annie-simons/
Mackintosh, B. (n.d.). National Park Service: History of U.S. Park Police. National Park Service. Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/police/police6.htm
Obituary for Annie Carolyn (Reaves) Simons at Thornton Funeral Home, P.A. (n.d.). Thornton Funeral Home. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.thorntonfuneralhomepa.com/guestbook/annie-reaves-simons
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To learn more about Women and the NPS Uniform, visit Dressing the Part: A Portfolio of Women's History in the NPS.This research was made possible in part by a grant from the National Park Foundation.