Dallas Honors 1st Black Police Officer 128 Years After He Was Murdered 2 Months Into The Job

The city of Dallas, Texas is honoring the first Black police officer 128 years after his tragic murder.

Dallas has honored its first African American police officer, Officer William McDuff, who was tragically killed outside his home in 1896.

The city is just one month away from unveiling a street topper in honor of McDuff, NBC DFW reports. The memorial is located near the spot where he was tragically murdered on Christmas Day, only weeks after being sworn into office.

“He’s in office approximately two months before he’s confronted by these two young men who don’t like the fact there’s an ‘N’ police officer and calls him out of his house and shoots him down in front of it,” Historian Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney said.

Dallas had been trying to hire a Black officer since 1888 but faced significant resistance.

“Finally, in 1896, the police department or the city decides to respond, and they hire William McDuff,” Dulaney said.

However, 1896 marked a pivotal year when innovation paved the way for change. The city of Dallas took a significant step toward inclusivity in post-Civil War America.

“So, in 1896, there were indeed some sympathetic white council members who not only appoint the police officer, but they do something in terms of supporting Black education in the city,” Dulaney explained. “So, it’s a progressive period in the history of Dallas.”

Dallas joined with other cities in adding Black men to their police departments.

“Charleston, New Orleans, Mobile, Alabama, and Jacksonville, Florida, had already appointed African Americans to the police department,” Dulaney said.

In Texas, Austin, Waco, and Houston were also adding Black officers. In Dallas, McDuff was appointed as a “special officer” for the neighborhood, a role distinct from that of a traditional police officer.

“As we know with McDuff and Black police officers in most of the southern cities, they could not arrest whites,” Dulaney said.

A neighbor who witnessed McDuff’s murder described hearing a flash followed by the crack of a revolver. When other officers arrived, they found McDuff “stone dead,” a newspaper said at the time. The report stated he had been shot directly in the forehead between the eyes, with death likely being instantaneous.

The two men responsible for his death were from the same community and were also Black. It was nearly 50 years before the city saw another Black officer.

“1947 is when they eventually appoint African Americans to the police department,” Dulaney explained.

McDuff’s memorial serves as a tribute to the Dallas trailblazer, even though the exact location of his burial remains uncertain.

“It’s sort of sad in a way that we don’t know where they actually buried William McDuff, and it’s sort of a characteristic of one of the problems that we confront in African American history that we lose these stories, and we lose them to such an extent that we don’t even know what happened to persons after they died,” Dulaney said.