Now this is a crying shame.

Howard Baugh grew up next door to Martin Luther King Jr. and joined the Atlanta Police Department in 1953 as its 12th black recruit. He is a veteran of the civil-rights demonstrations that roiled this city — and of a long struggle against bigotry within the police force itself.

Mr. Baugh, now 81 years old, is still fighting that battle. Together with a group of fellow officers who crossed the color line decades ago, Mr. Baugh is pressing the state of Georgia to grant him the same pension benefits as his white counterparts from that era.

Mr. Baugh and the other African-American retirees say that early in their police careers, they were blocked from participating in a state-backed supplemental retirement fund because of their color. As a result, Mr. Baugh says, he receives about $700 less each month than white officers who signed up. As many as 200 other retired black officers, many in their 70s and 80s, are in the same boat.

There shouldn’t be any kind of an argument here, these guys laid their lives on the line to protect the public, excelled at their jobs and the “powers that be” should find the money to pay them pensions and retirement benefits equal to those of retired white cops.