The Negro Who Hit Czolgocz [sic]

     Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 8.—James B. Parker, the Georgia negro who knocked down Czolgocz the moment after he shot the President, was found today. He gave a graphic account of the tragic occurrence.
     “I was next in line behind the Anarchist who shot the President, he said, [sic] “I tried to get in front of him several times, but he pushed me back with his elbow. A little girl had just shaken hands with the President when the assassin reached him. Czolgocz had the revolver concealed in a handkerchief, which was wrapped around the revolver and his hand. Czolgocz did not extend his left hand as some of the newspapers report. The President thought Czolgocz’s right hand was sore, and put out his hand to take the Anarchist’s left hand. As he did this the Anarchist fired twice, bam, bam. I struck him in the nose with my right fist, aud [sic] reached with my left hand to take the pistol from him. Several of the marines thought the officer was the man who did the shooting, but he pointed to where I had Czolgocz down on the floor, and said: ‘There is the man who shot him.’ Czolgocz raised his pistol again to shoot either the President or myself, but at that time I choked him so hard that he couldn’t shoot. I struck him so hard that the blood gushed from his nose. We struggled some seconds before the secret service officers reached us. Then one of them, I think it was Foster, struck him and said: ‘You d— d—, did you dare to shoot our President?’ I wanted to cut his throat, but they took him from me. I believe that my striking Czolgocz kept him from shooting until he emptied his pistol and probably prevented the President from being wounded again.”
     Parker is a native of Georgia, his mother was a Savannah colored woman, and his father was a half Spanish and half negro from John’s Island, off Charleston. He has been living in Buffalo since last March, and had for several months been employed in the Plaza Restaurant, in the Exposition grounds. He got off from his work in order to shake hands with the President, and was the man immediately behind the assassin.
     Parker considers Atlanta as his home, he having lived most of his life there, working in the North at intervals. He says he only did his duty, but does not relish the way in which the secret service men have attempted to create the impression that they overcame the assassin. He only regrets that he was not allowed to kill Czolgocz. “The twenty thousand white people there ought not to have expected a nigger to do it all.” He said: “Some of them ought to have helped me kill him[;] we would have fixed him quick in Georgia.”
     Parker is in deadly fear of the Anarchists and says that he will leave Buffalo soon because he is afraid they will kill him.