Trailblazer: Henry Etta Sitgraves, Rock Hill’s first Black female police officer, dies
Henry Etta Sitgraves, the first African-American female to be an officer at the Rock Hill Police Department, has died.
She was 75, according to an obituary from Robinson Funeral Home. Sitgraves passed away last month after living many years in Texas, according to the obituary.
A local celebration of life service is set for 11 a.m. Saturday at Liberty Hill Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery in Catawba.
Police department officials confirmed Sitgraves is believed to be the first Black woman to be sworn in as an officer when she joined the department in October 1976.
The Herald published a photo of her being sworn in on Oct. 2, 1976.
Retired police officer Marvin Brown, who also joined the force in 1976, recalled working the same shift as Sitgraves when both were early in their police careers. Patrol cars had two officers to a car in those days. Brown and Sitgraves were at times patrol partners.
Sitgraves knew the city and its people, and was committed to doing a good job for the public, Brown said.
“Henry Etta did her job very capably,” Brown said. “She was one of us.”
Law enforcement in the 1970s was a mostly male vocation. The Rock Hill Police Department integrated the ranks with male Black officers in the 1960s a decade before Sitgraves became the first female African-American officer.
A mother of two children, Sitgraves was a graduate of Friendship Junior College in Rock Hill (now known as Clinton University), and attended Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, according to her obituary.
Sitgraves served in the military first in the U.S. Army Reserve starting in 1979, then on active duty after 1991, according to her obituary.
This story was originally published September 15, 2023 at 1:29 PM.
