Bertha Whedbee

Bertha Par Simmons Whedbee (1876 - 1960) was an activist, suffragist, and first African American woman to become a police officer in Louisville, Kentucky.

Biography Whedbee was born as Bertha Par Simmons in West Virginia in 1879. She later became a kindergarten teacher, graduating from the first class of the Colored Kindergarten Association in 1901. She married a physician, Ellis D. Whedbee, in 1898. Whedbee became involved in the women's suffrage movement in Louisville.

In 1919 Bertha Whedbee was inspired to become a police officer herself after local police officers arrested her 17-year-old son, Ellis Jr, as a robbery suspect. Bertha's fine was later suspended, but the fine for her son was upheld. The Whedbees filed a suit against the police station master. Whedbee went on to become the first African American woman to work for the Louisville Metro Police Department when she started on March 22, 1922.

Bertha Whedbee died in 1960. She was buried in Louisville Cemetery.