Family, friends and the community attended The Bethel Church to celebrate the life of Charles Scriven Saturday morning.

Charles Scriven, the first Black officer in Jacksonville to advance to the level of chief, died on Christmas Day, his family said.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A group of white men, wielding ax handles and bats, attacked young Black youths staging a sit-in on Aug. 27, 1960, at a segregated lunch counter in downtown Jacksonville. Sixty years later, a retired Jacksonville police chief still remembers what it felt like to know he and other Black officers were not able to help protect those victims. “I became a little frustrated by it,” said retired Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Chief Charles Scriven. He said Black police officers were essentially hired to be a buffer between white police officers and the Black community. But the Black officers were told not to deviate from their jurisdiction, which was only in area filled with mostly Black residents.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Charles Scriven is a retired policeman from the Jacksonville Police Department -- the predecessor of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. He fought for equality for both himself and others and rose through the ranks to be the department’s first African-American chief. On Saturday, Scriven was honored by the Brotherhood of Police Officers, a minority organization established in 1979 to make sure all police officers are treated equally. “We had limitations and part of the problem was removing some of those limitations so you could do your job,” Scriven said. “A person who was respected by his peers.”Decades later, Scriven has a message for all police officers.

He would go on to become the first African American officer in Jacksonville to advance to the level of chief. To understand his journey as an officer and decades of being denied the rights and privileges of white officers, you go back several decades. We only worked in then the Negro community. "This swimming pool was built as a promise to the Negro community and the first Negro precinct was a room downstairs under the pool," said Scriven. That's when current FOP President Steve Zona found out about the battle for membership Scriven had been fighting for decades.

Charles Scriven joined the Jacksonville Police Department in 1955. Two years later he wanted to join the Fraternal Order of Police, but was denied because he is African American. Finally, on June... Copyright 2019 by WJXT News4Jax - All rights reserved.

Charles Scriven joined the Jacksonville Police Department in 1955. Two years later, he was denied membership to the Fraternal Order of Police because he was an African American. He was finally granted membership in 1996, and on Tuesday night, the FOP honored Scriven and apologized. According to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, Scriven was the first African American police chief at JSO.