Marcus Foster
A Black superintendent of schools was killed in an ambush on this date in 1973.
Marcus A. Foster, superintendent of schools in Oakland, CA, was ambushed after a Board of Education meeting. He was shot eight times, and five bullets were tipped with cyanide. Two members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a West Coast terrorist group, were convicted of the slaying. Still, the conviction of one of the men was overturned on a legal technicality.
The SLA was angry with Foster for following a school directive to issue identification cards to students to protect them from drug dealers and gang members wandering the campus.
