Art Blakey Jr. lived the last few days of his life as he’d lived most every day of his 83 years: surrounded by community members.
The long-time Minnesota State Fair police chief and Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy passed away peacefully Saturday morning in his St. Paul home, just blocks from where he’d grown up, his daughter Brooke Blakey said.
She described the last week at his home as “a revolving door of people coming by from every walk of life to pay their respects.”
Blakey served the community for 52 years and only hung up his hat last year when he retired as police chief of the Minnesota State Fair. He was the first African-American sworn officer in the Ramsey County sheriff’s office.
As word spread of his passing, friends, neighbors and co-workers took to social media to tell how Blakey had touched their lives.
Ramsey County Sheriff Jack Serier posted that it was “a very sad day for us at the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office. He has been a mentor to many in our agency and will be greatly missed by us.”
Brooke Blakey wasn’t surprised by the community’s response.
“His family was his pride and joy,” she said. “But we have always shared him. He has always had a huge extended family — his fair family, his Ramsey County family, his community. That’s where he felt most at home.”
RONDO BABY
Blakey was born Jan. 24, 1935, to Arthur Blakey Sr. and Johnnie Mae Butler in Yankton, S.D., a town on the Missouri River, just north of the Nebraska border.
He was 5 years old when he, his parents and his younger sister Wanda relocated to the St. Paul Rondo neighborhood where Blakey would live for the rest of his life.
He graduated from Central High School in 1954 and went into the Air Force. He recalled in April that while in the Air Force he received a frantic phone call from his father saying, “They’re taking my house.”
In the 1960s, some 600 homes and businesses in the heart of Rondo, largely a black community, were demolished to make room for the construction of Interstate 94.
In spite of the highway’s disruption, Blakey and his neighbors continued to identify with the Rondo neighborhood.
“He was a Rondo baby,” Brooke Blakey said.
Blakey married the love of his life, Carolyn Carroll, in a simple ceremony in 1980. That was the same year he became the first African-American police chief of the Minnesota State Fair — a job he would have for 37 years.
The couple had three children: Arthur III, Janelle and Brooke, and five grandchildren.
Arthur and Janelle followed their mother into the health care industry, but Brooke, despite her father’s objections, followed him into law enforcement. One of his last public acts was pinning on her new badge July 25 when she was promoted to sergeant with the Metro Transit Police.
“He told me to go out and do good, and to go out and be good. So that’s what I do,” she said.
While he may have been a tough enforcer as a police officer, he didn’t carry that persona home with him, she said.
“He was a big teddy bear,” Brooke said. “He was definitely not the disciplinarian at all. Mama ruled the roost.”
Was he a romantic?
“Not at all,” said Brooke, laughing. “Their big thing was driving around in their Corvette.”
GODFATHER OF THE COMMUNITY
That convertible two-seater cherry red Corvette was a fixture in their neighborhood along Selby Avenue, recalled Devin Miller, 52, who considered Blakey a mentor and an example of what an African-American man should be like.
“You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing him either in uniform or out of uniform. He was like the godfather of the community,” he said.
Blakey began his law enforcement career with the Ramsey County sheriff’s office on March 3, 1965, as a reserve deputy. He went full time in 1970.
Miller met Blakey in the early 2000s while volunteering at the New Beginnings center. With Blakey’s aid, he later helped found the God Squad, a community group that helps forge relationships between the police and the community.
