Triumph and Tragedy: Dallas honors first Black police officer 128 years after his murder

In February, Dallas recognized its first African American police officer, Officer William McDuff, who was killed in 1896.

McDuff will now be memorialized with a street topper near the place he was tragically murdered, just weeks after he was sworn into office.

Historian Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney studies Black police officers throughout American history and chronicles the triumph and tragedy of William McDuff.

Dulaney explains Dallas had attempted to hire a Black officer since 1888, but there was resistance.

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

1896 was truly a year for the history books. That year, the first Fort Worth Stock Show was held on the banks of Marine Creek, the Dow Jones was created, the first Ford vehicle was completed, and the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece.

In Dallas, the world was changing too—at least in the Springtown community, or Deep Ellum as we know it today.

“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.”

In the rest of the country, the reality was a bit different. It was the same year a U.S. Supreme Court decision upheld racial segregation with the “separate but equal” doctrine.

Dallas was doing something contrary to much of the nation.

“In reality, in the rest of the country, redemption is taking place. Redemption is where, particularly in the South, they decide to force all the African Americans out of public offices, where they stop them from voting across the South,” Dulaney said. “It's a period of violence. They overturn city government offices where African Americans serve. So, it's a terrible period in American history.”

But Dallas wasn’t alone. Other cities were hiring Black officers.

“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.

McDuff was named a “special officer” for the neighborhood—a bit different from a traditional officer.

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

With his place in history cemented as the first Black officer, tragedy would soon strike on Christmas Day.

“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,” Dulaney said.

An 1896 newspaper article spells it out. A neighbor saw it all and described a flash and the crack of a revolver. Other officers arrived to find McDuff “stone dead.” The paper reported he had been shot squarely in the forehead between the eyes and death must have been instantaneous.

The two men who killed him were from the community and were also Black.

It would take decades before there was another Black officer in the city.

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

It was more than 50 years before history would open its door to another Black Dallas police officer.

But modern-day Dallas knows all about this type of tragedy, too. Officers ambushed and killed are now an unfortunate part of the city’s legacy.

In 2016, a man ambushed officers in downtown Dallas, killing five and injuring nine others.

And most recently, in 2024, rookie Officer Darron Burks, 46, was ambushed and “executed” in the Oak Cliff community of Dallas.

McDuff is a part of that brotherhood of loss, though his life is still largely unknown. There is still uncertainty as to where he was buried.

“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.