Agency honors first African-American federal officer killed in line of duty
Washington (CNN) -- William Henderson Foote was a lawman of the highest order in his small town of Yazoo City, Mississippi, when he died in the line of duty more than a century ago.
He'd once been the town's constable, town marshal and circuit clerk while serving in the Mississippi legislature.
And on Monday, Foote was remembered and recognized as the first African-American federal office killed in the line of duty.
Foote was honored 128 years after his death as part of National Police Week. Several of Foote's descendants were in attendance and Foote's great-grandniece, Bettye Gardner, a professor of African-American history at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland, accepted the award.
In December 1883, on what would be his last Christmas Eve, Foote intervened to protect an African-American man from being lynched. In the scuffle, three white men in the lynching party were shot and killed, but Foote ended up being put in prison.
Four days later, Foote was killed by a lynch mob that stormed the prison where he was held. He died December 29, 1883.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/15/us/fallen-hero/index.html
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