March 25, 2025
Town of Dallas, Texas is honoring the primary Black police officer 128 years after his tragic homicide.
Dallas has honored its first African American police officer, Officer William McDuff, who was tragically killed exterior his residence in 1896.
Town is only one month away from unveiling a road topper in honor of McDuff, NBC DFW reviews. The memorial is positioned close to the spot the place he was tragically murdered on Christmas Day, solely weeks after being sworn into workplace.
“He’s in workplace roughly two months earlier than he’s confronted by these two younger males who don’t like the actual fact there’s an ‘N’ police officer and calls him out of his home and shoots him down in entrance of it,” Historian Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney mentioned.
Dallas had been making an attempt to rent a Black officer since 1888 however confronted important resistance.
“Lastly, in 1896, the police division or town decides to reply, and so they rent William McDuff,” Dulaney mentioned.
Nonetheless, 1896 marked a pivotal 12 months when innovation paved the way in which for change. Town of Dallas took a big step towards inclusivity in post-Civil Warfare America.
“So, in 1896, there have been certainly some sympathetic white council members who not solely appoint the police officer, however they do one thing when it comes to supporting Black schooling within the metropolis,” Dulaney defined. “So, it’s a progressive interval within the historical past of Dallas.”
Dallas joined with different cities in including Black males to their police departments.
“Charleston, New Orleans, Cellular, Alabama, and Jacksonville, Florida, had already appointed African People to the police division,” Dulaney mentioned.
In Texas, Austin, Waco, and Houston had been additionally including Black officers. In Dallas, McDuff was appointed as a “particular officer” for the neighborhood, a job distinct from that of a conventional police officer.
“As we all know with McDuff and Black law enforcement officials in a lot of the southern cities, they might not arrest whites,” Dulaney mentioned.
A neighbor who witnessed McDuff’s homicide described listening to a flash adopted by the crack of a revolver. When different officers arrived, they discovered McDuff “stone lifeless,” a newspaper mentioned on the time. The report acknowledged he had been shot instantly within the brow between the eyes, with dying doubtless being instantaneous.
The 2 males chargeable for his dying had been from the identical neighborhood and had been additionally Black. It was practically 50 years earlier than town noticed one other Black officer.
“1947 is after they finally appoint African People to the police division,” Dulaney defined.
McDuff’s memorial serves as a tribute to the Dallas trailblazer, regardless that the precise location of his burial stays unsure.
“It’s form of unhappy in a method that we don’t know the place they really buried William McDuff, and it’s form of a attribute of one of many issues that we confront in African American historical past that we lose these tales, and we lose them to such an extent that we don’t even know what occurred to individuals after they died,” Dulaney mentioned.
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