African American lawyer William T. Francis, appointed US minister to Liberia by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927, dies of yellow fever in Monrovia, Liberia. Born in Indianapolis in 1869, Francis moved to Minnesota in 1888 and later took over Frederick McGhee's law practice. As a well-known St. Paul attorney, Francis participated in many racially charged trials, including the 1920 appeal of the Duluth lynchings trial, in which he represented the defendants.