James Benjamin Parker (July 31, 1857 – April 13, 1907)[1] was an African-American man most noted for attempting to stop Leon Czolgosz from assassinating President William McKinley.

He later moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he was employed as a waiter, before returning to Atlanta, where he appears in city directories as a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service.

[3][4] Parker had been laid off from his job at the Plaza Restaurant prior to September 6, 1901, and used that day to visit the Exposition's Hall of Music, where President William McKinley was receiving members of the public.

A contingent of up to 75 City of Buffalo police and exposition security guards monitored the doors to the Hall of Music and patrolled the queue waiting to see the president.

Since the Spanish–American War, the United States Secret Service had been protecting McKinley, and two special agents, backed by several Buffalo police detectives, stood near the president.

After the second shot, according to a later account by United States Secret Service special agent Samuel Ireland, Parker punched Czolgosz in the neck then tackled him to the ground.

[7] An unnamed witness cited in a Los Angeles Times story said that "with one quick shift of his clenched fist, he [Parker] knocked the pistol from the assassin's hand.

"[9] Prior to McKinley's death, when his outlook for recovery appeared promising, the Savannah Tribune, an African-American newspaper, trumpeted of Parker "the life of our chief magistrate was saved by a Negro.

[11] After the assassination, Parker left Buffalo, and after spending the Christmas holidays with his family in Atlanta,[12] traveled through the United States giving lectures to enthusiastic crowds at such places as Nashville, Tennessee,[13] Long Branch, New Jersey,[14] Brooklyn, New York,[15] and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[17] Although there was talk of Parker being appointed as a messenger to the United States Senate,[18] nothing seems to have come of it, and he subsequently went to work as a traveling salesman for the New York City based Gazetteer and Guide, an African-American interest magazine written for Pullman Porters and railroad and hotel employees.