North Carolina's head of the highway patrol grapples with accusations that the department unfairly targets blacks. The South's only black state highway patrol chief, Col. Richard Holden, remembers the first ticket he ever wrote. He remembers it not so much for the traffic offense, but for a judge's encouragement to the 22-year-old North Carolina State Highway Patrol trooper. "You have a lot of authority. Use it wisely," state District Judge George Stuhl told Holden privately. "But don't let anybody else, regardless of who they are, make you afraid to do your job and do what is right." As one of the North Carolina patrol's two black troopers in 1969, Holden knew the Fayetteville, N.C., judge was referring to race, a highly charged issue in the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. Disturbing police images linger from that tumultuous era, of Alabama state troopers wielding clubs and bullwhips against civil rights marchers in the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" confrontation in Selma, Ala. "There is an image that law was an instrument of the white establishment, rather than an instrument of the type of justice envisioned by the U.S. Constitution," said Blease Graham, a political scientist and dean of the College of Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina. Gradually, in a growing number of cities, African-Americans have risen to top cop jobs. But Holden, 51, is the only black to command a Southern state highway patrol, according to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in Alexandria, Va. North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt praised Holden as a "man of great character and integrity" after selecting the 29-year patrol veteran in February over five other finalists. In North Carolina, where the State Highway Patrol is politically powerful and, in recent years, plagued by controversy, Holden is grappling with accusations that black motorists are unfairly targeted by troopers. The state Senate last week accepted the House version of a bill requiring an analysis of traffic stops by state law enforcement agencies to see whether minority motorists are stopped more than white drivers. "If it is happening, we plan to put an end to it," Holden said recently in an interview at his Raleigh office looking across a grassy lawn at the state legislative building. "I want to stop people for the right reasons." Holden, who supports the legislation requiring state police to keep statistics about the race, gender and age of motorists they stop, isn't convinced that state troopers are targeting minority drivers. It's possible, he said, that patrol officers are pulling more blacks in communities where African-Americans represent a larger percentage of the population. "I think we need to look and see," he said. Holden remembers an occasional racial slight early in his career and name calling by white motorists who questioned his authority to stop them. He also remembers suspicion among some African-Americans that he might be part of "the establishment." Holden said he always reminded himself, as he does now, "What I am doing has to do with safety. These vehicles don't pick out somebody's color when they run into somebody.