Beverly Harvard

Beverly Joyce Bailey Harvard (born December 22, 1950) is a former police chief of Atlanta, Georgia, and the first black female police chief of a major city in the United States.

Early life and education Beverly Joyce Bailey was born in Macon, Georgia, on December 22, 1950, the youngest of seven children. She graduated from Ballard-Hudson High School, where she was a majorette captain in the marching band and participated in drama club and choir. She went on to attend Morris Brown College in Atlanta, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology at age 22.

Career In 1973, her husband, Jimmy, and one of his friends bet her $100 that she could not become a police officer. She accepted the bet and, later that year, was hired as an officer in the Atlanta Police Department. After completing her police academy training, she spent several years performing night foot patrols in high-crime areas. In 1979, she was promoted to affirmative action specialist and then to director of public affairs in 1980, where she handled media inquiries regarding the Atlanta child murders. Her performance handling the media resulted in a promotion to deputy police chief in 1982. Harvard graduated from the FBI National Academy in 1983.

In 2010, Harvard was nominated by President Barack Obama to become the United States Marshal for the Northern District of Georgia, a position that she held until 2019.