U.S. marshal protected civil rights figures

Richard K. “Kirk” Bowden, who served as a deputy U.S. marshal during the civil rights era, providing security at the 1963 March on Washington and for James Meredith, the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi, died Jan. 20 at his home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He was 82.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his wife, Shirley Watkins Bowden.

Bowden (the first syllable of his last name is pronounced “bough”) was an Air Force veteran and a former District of Columbia police officer before he joined the U.S. Marshals Service in 1962.

Within months, he was assigned to provide protection for Meredith, whose enrollment at the University of Mississippi touched off one of most tumultuous moments in civil rights history. Riots claimed two lives and injured hundreds more.

White federal marshals accompanied Meredith to class, but off campus he was guarded by a small group of black deputy marshals, including Bowden.

Later, in August 1963, Bowden was called on to provide protection for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

At the time, Bowden later said, he didn’t recognize the historic significance of his work.

“It was a detail, an assignment — let’s keep this guy alive kind of thing and let’s stay alive in the process,” he said. “But I was a young fellow and didn’t have the kind of foresight to say, ‘Oh wow, I’m making history.’ It didn’t occur to me to take a camera and take pictures of this.”

Richard Kirkland Bowden was born Dec. 24, 1935, in Memphis and was adopted soon after birth. His father was a plumber, his mother a homemaker.