Olatunji Joseph Egungbemi is a graduate student in American Studies at the University of Wyoming. He holds degrees in International Relations and Political Science, and his research interests include race, prisons, cultural diplomacy, and political culture in the United States and Africa. Based in Laramie, Wyoming, he writes on histories of power, identity, and social change.
In January 1966, James W. “Jim” Byrd became the first Black police chief in Cheyenne—and in Wyoming. Over a 25-year career he helped modernize the Cheyenne Police Department and went on to serve as a Wyoming highway safety director and U.S. Marshal. Read more about this quiet trailblazer in Wyoming public life.