Greenwood Fire Chief Marcus Banks entered 2023 by celebrating 28 years with the Greenwood Fire Department.
He first joined on Jan. 3, 1995, a career choice that was a departure from his original goal.
“I wanted to go to the military and I wanted to be either an F-15 fighter pilot or fly Apache helicopters,” he said. “Just kind of grew up wanting to be a pilot. Didn’t have any pilots that I knew but kind of always liked the military aspect.”
Banks, 48, was still a teenager when he first received inspiration to become a firefighter. That inspiration was planted after a family tragedy.
He recalled the events of Aug. 25, 1991, the day his grandfather, Willie Hallman, perished in a house fire.
That day was a Sunday. Banks and his family were attending a church service in West Point.
“We were in the middle of service,” he said. “My mom was called to the back office of the church. At the time, she was an excellent singer so I thought someone wanted her to sing a solo or something. When she came out of the office, she was visibly upset and she said, ‘Come on, we have to go. There’s been a fire.’”
The family arrived at Hallman’s house at 408 Williamson St., where the fire had been extinguished. Banks’ uncle came to greet them, and Banks saw firefighters guiding a body bag out of the house.
“When I saw my mom collapse in my uncle’s arms, I knew it was (my grandfather),” he recalled.
The firefighters who recovered Hallman’s body included Scott Hemphill, who still works at the department today, and the late George McCain, Greenwood’s first Black fire chief.
Banks was attending Mississippi Valley State University and working part-time at Fred’s Department Store, while also visiting a local Masonic lodge that had several firefighters, including McCain, as members.
McCain approached Banks one day and asked if he ever considered becoming a firefighter.
“After I got in, I knew that was where I wanted to be,” Banks said. “I remained in the military as a reservist. I got away from wanting to be a pilot. I knew I wanted to make a career.”
Eventually, his relationships with his fellow firefighters grew strong enough that they could talk about the day Hallman died.
“For a long time, I had a lot of questions,” he said. “They didn’t want to talk about it. Over time, as we got to be friends, they told me what they saw when they got on the scene and how they attacked the fire.”
Banks has now been on the other side of the coin. Despite his best efforts, there have been times when he was unable to save a victim’s life.
One instance, nearly 20 years ago, involved an apartment fire with twin sisters trapped in the building. He entered the home and found both of the girls, finding one with a pulse and giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Unfortunately, both of the girls would die after being transported to Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Another instance Banks recalled was saving a preacher, who had driven into a lake near St. Francis of Assisi Church.
“I had been an excellent swimmer all my life — gone on to receive lifeguard certifications — and I was about to hit the water. I took my gear off and hit the water.
“The windows were up on this car. I couldn’t get the doors open. I made a couple of dives and I came back up and said, ‘I need a brick. I need a hammer. I need something.’ I had never done anything like this in my life, but on TV, when you hit the window, the window breaks. It’s not that way. I had to take four or five whacks at it.”
He recovered the preacher, and though the preacher succumbed to his injuries, Banks said the family reached out to him and thanked him for his efforts.
The advice he shares with prospective firefighters is not to enter the profession if you’re looking to be a hero. It is something that Banks cautions new recruits about and something he followed when he was still coming up in the department.
“You want to save lives,” he said. “I’ve been involved in several situations where there was no medal of honor. There was no hero. I was just glad we saved the day.”
Banks has been fire chief for 13 years. He is the third consecutive Black fire chief, following McCain and Larry Griggs.
“I never really put a lot into being a Black fire chief,” he said. “I’d rather say I’m a fire chief who happens to be Black. But I also understand the historical aspects of it and the sacrifices.”
He said that when he first joined the fire department, there were lots of racial tensions, to an extent he had not experienced before.
“When I came here, just a young cat, 20 years old, it was very weird,” he said. “And when you came here, you were immediately expected to pick a side. Blacks were Blacks and whites were whites.”
He said he is grateful for his attitude and willingness to make decisions that helped him overcome the environment. Hemphill, who is white, ended up becoming one of his closest friends.
Banks also witnessed much of the disrespect that McCain had to deal with and it inspired him to become as impressive and educated a firefighter that he could possibly be, to “blow everybody out of the water.”
Banks said he is in “the fourth quarter” of his career, and though retirement is not imminent, he knows that it is in the future.
Still, he said he loves the job and believes his experience is valuable.
“I’m grateful because it puts me at a tremendous advantage when I’m on the fire scene,” he said. “Managing and coordinating the tactics on the fire scene, but also knowing what makes the water come through the hose, go through the nozzle to get the pressure. I can listen to a truck, by the RPM and the engine idle and can tell you when your truck is about to run out of water. The worst managers in my opinion are the guys and girls who never did the job.”
He has been offered a few positions outside of Greenwood but, as he said, loves the community and feels Greenwood has yet to reach its full potential. He also said that “at heart, I’m a country guy” who loves to hunt and fish, which makes this the perfect region for him.
Mayor Carolyn McAdams and the Greenwood City Council are “magnificent” to work with, he said. The job of fire chief comes with a lot of political pressure, and he has friends who retired because of politics. That is not an issue for him here in Greenwood.
“In my line of work, people get killed by me making the wrong decisions,” he said. “Having been so involved and holding almost every rank here, it just really helps me on the fire scene to try to make the best decisions I can for those guys at the end of the nozzle.”
Contact Kevin Edwards at 662-581-7233 or kedwards@gwcommonwealth.com.
