Parker, the Colored Hero

Captor of McKinley’s Assassin Addresses Good Sized Audience.

     James B. Parker, the colored lecturer, was greeted by a good sized crowd at the African M. E. Zion church on Cedar street [sic] Wednesday evening. Parker is the man who gained renown by assisting to capture the assassin of President McKinley immediately after the former had done his dastardly act. In his lecture of Wednesday evening Parker gave a very interesting description of the sad affair. He told of how the assassin brushed past him to greet the president, and how, with his hand bound in a handkerchief, he made a feint to grasp the extended hand of the chief executive, but instead fired the shots from the concealed weapon. Parker told them of the great scenes of panic that followed. The colored lecturer said that he struck the assassin in the face, felling him to the floor and breaking his nose. The force of the blow, he said, somewhat crippled his hand and the latter he showed to his audience. Parker concluded by relating the closing incidents in the sad chapter. During his stay here he was the guest of the pastor of the church, the Rev. T. A. Auten.