Bill Burchardt

Most folks around Fort Smith, Arkansas thought Judge Isaac Parker had taken leave of his senses when he commissioned Gar Rutherford, a black man, as a federal marshal. Parker reasoned that a black marshal would engender less hatred among the Indian tribes of the Oklahoma Territory than a white man would. The judge underestimated the prejudice of whites and the contempt of blacks, though, especially when a warrant from Parker's court forced the marshal...