Editor’s note: This week, The Root will examine the many facets of law enforcement and its effects on the black community with our weeklong series Unprotected, Underserved: The Policing of Black America.

Before you read this story, I suggest you pour yourself a tall glass of your favorite beverage (I recommend Crown Royal Apple*) because you’ll probably do a few spit takes at the unbelievable shenanigans going on in Little Rock, Ark.

After 52 years as a resident, 29 years as a police officer and five years as assistant chief—and nearly three years since the killing of unarmed citizen Walter Scott—Reggie Burgess will be sworn in Thursday as North Charleston, S.C.’s first black police chief.

We still have a long way to go if police departments across the country are still just beginning to swear in their first African-American officers. In Superior, Wis., that is just what was celebrated Thursday as, for the first time in the 133-year history of the city’s Police Department, an African-American recruit…