Bass Reeves relative donates gun and badge

Federal Judge Paul Brady and his wife Xernona were in Fort Smith on Monday (April 11) to donate a gun, U.S. Marshal badge and bullets that one belonged to U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves.

The items will become property of the U.S. Marshals Museum. In January 2007, the U.S. Marshals Service selected Fort Smith as the site for the national museum. The cost to build the 50,000-square-foot museum — including exhibit work — is estimated as high as $50 million.

The legendary Marshal Reeves is the great-uncle of Brady, who served 25 years as a Federal Administrative Law Judge in the Atlanta area. When appointed in 1972, he was the first black to be appointed to the federal position.

Reeves began his career as a deputy U.S. Marshal during the term of U.S. District Judge Isaac Parker. Reeves served as a U.S. Marshal between 1875 and 1910. Although Reeves was an African-American and illiterate, he brought in more outlaws  from eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas than anyone else, according to the book, “Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves,” written by Art Burton. He was able to memorize the warrants for every law breaker he was to arrest and bring to trial.

Reeves was an expert tracker and detective, both respected and hated, but mostly feared. Reeves was not the first African-American appointed to serve Judge Parker’s federal court as a deputy U.S. Marshal, but he was the most famous Marshal in his day. He was the first African-American inducted into the Great Westerners Hall of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in 1992.

Brady, 83, speaking Monday to a packed room at the temporary offices of the U.S. Marshals Museum in downtown Fort Smith, said he knew that one day he would contribute something to the legacy of his great-uncle Bass Reeves. He just never thought it would be his “prized possessions” of the gun and badge once owned by Reeves.

“But after thinking long and hard about it, I realized that the place for that gun and that badge was in Fort Smith,” Brady said.

Brady said Reeves was as much an inspiration as he was a relation. He reminded the crowd that Reeves “rose from that lonely status” as a slave to become “in some circumstances” the highest legal representative for the U.S.

In addition to being related to Reeves, Brady is connected to the Brown v Board of Education ruling — one of the most influential U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

The 1954 decision effectively ended segregation in public schools. In his bio, Brady said he decided to pursue a legal career “after working with the small group that met and developed the case (Brown v Board of Education) in his aunt’s home.”

Brady said he is pleased more people are learning about the “character” of Reeves, adding that the more people know, they more they will be inspired by his actions.

Brady thanked the staff, volunteers and financial supporters of the Marshals Museum and also praised the efforts of the Bass Reeves Legacy Initiative. A prominent project of the initiative is to raise $300,000 to fund construction and maintenance of a large statue of Reeves in Pendergraft Park in downtown Fort Smith.

The schedule for placing the statue, of which Harold Holden has been commissioned to create, was May 2011. However, the Initiative has said the dedication is now set for September 2011 to be part of the 50th anniversary of the Fort Smith National Historic Site.