As a St. Paul police officer in 1971, Jim Mann negotiated with a bank robber who had taken an 18-month-old girl and her grandmother hostage. He obtained their safe release.

Nearly 40 years passed before the police department recognized Mann for his actions. He was awarded the Medal of Valor, the department’s highest honor, in 2009.

Those who knew Mann, who died Saturday at 88, believe he was not recognized earlier because he was a controversial figure in the department.

One of four African-American police officers in St. Paul until more were hired in the early 1970s, Mann worked to relieve racial tension between police and the community and to recruit more minorities to the department. He also took an active role in community groups.

“He was a man who had a keen sense of justice and injustice, and whenever he saw injustice, he said something,” said Anna Marie Ettel, Mann’s wife. “Whether it was prudent or politically correct, he spoke up. He did that all his life.”

In more recent years, Mann was known around town for his barbecue – he had a mobile barbecue trailer he’d take to the St. Paul Farmers Market and community events. He was also a newlywed; he and Ettel, together for 40 years, were married six months ago after Mann suddenly proposed.

“He said he had it in his heart for a long time, but he was afraid I’d say, ‘No,’ ” Ettel said.

Born Feb. 8, 1923, in Brownsville, Tenn., Mann enlisted in the U.S. Regular Army after high school. He was stationed largely in Trinidad with an all-black company during World War II, Ettel said.

After he was honorably discharged, Mann attended Tennessee State University and Wagner College in New York. He moved to Minnesota in 1950 to attend the University of Minnesota School of Mortuary Science, Ettel said.

Mann left the program after a year and went to work at the Twin Cities Arsenal, which became the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant.

In 1957, Mann joined the St. Paul police. He saw his job as a “social worker” with enforcement power, he told Kate Cavett, executive director of Hand in Hand Productions, when she interviewed him in 2007 for an oral history project on the St. Paul police.

The 1960s and 1970s were “very turbulent times” for race relations in St. Paul, Ettel said. “There weren’t a lot of black policemen. The police force, the white policemen, didn’t always trust him, and the black community wasn’t quite sure.”

Mann stood for whatever he thought was right, Ettel said.

“If he saw a policeman mistreating people, especially black people, he would intervene,” she said. “And if he saw black people hassling police, he would step in.”

Mann and his family lived in the Summit-University neighborhood. William Finney, who would go on to become the first African-American police chief in St. Paul and the state in 1992, knew Mann and James Griffin his entire life. Griffin, the first black St. Paul police officer to reach the ranks of sergeant, captain and deputy chief, and Mann were role models who influenced Finney to join the police force, the former chief said.

During the 1971 hostage situation, Finney was a rookie officer. He remembers watching from outside the house while Mann, who was unarmed, negotiated with a suspect who had two guns.

“At one point, I thought the guy was going to shoot Jimmy,” Finney said. “He pointed a gun at Jimmy and Jimmy maintained his calm, cool exterior and was able to work through it.”

The police department didn’t have a Medal of Valor at that point, but Finney said he doesn’t think Mann was properly recognized until much later because “people in ranking positions didn’t want to see him honored in that way.”

When Cavett heard about Mann’s role in the case during her interview with him, she brought it to the attention of then-Chief John Harrington. Harrington, now a state senator, said he checked it out and “validated that Jimmy was a legitimate, full-blown hero.”

Mann organized a meeting in St. Paul in the early 1970s of minority police officers from around the country, the National Conference of Minority Police, to work on ideas to calm racial tension in large urban centers, Finney said. Later, the National Black Police Association was formed, based on the same idea, the former chief said.

Outside of work, Mann ran for the St. Paul school board and state Senate in the 1960s, Finney said, though he didn’t win either race.

Mann was once active in the NAACP and a group then called Ramsey County Citizens Committee on Economic Opportunity. He was also president of the Summit-University Federation. The NAACP honored Mann’s lifetime of community service in 2006, Ettel said.

After Mann retired from police work in 1977, he opened a Selby Avenue barbecue restaurant, the Hickory Stick. It closed three or four years later, but “people still talk about it,” Ettel said.

Mann attended what is now St. Paul College and earned a welding certificate so he could build his own barbecue trailer. In the 1990s, he brought the trailer to the St. Paul Farmers Market to sell his food most weekends, Ettel said. He’d also go to community events and catered parties, she said.

After Ettel and Mann had a small wedding at their St. Paul home earlier this year, they celebrated in April with 200 family and friends at a reception at the Science Museum of Minnesota, Ettel said.

On Saturday, Mann died of congestive heart failure at home.

Mann is survived by six children from his marriage to the late Thelma Mann. They are Justin Mann, of St. Paul; Tia Mann-Evans, of Decatur, Ga.; Lisa Shelly, of Simi Valley, Calif.; Marcy Mann-Anderson, of Minneapolis; Jason Mann, of St. Paul; and Holly Mann Hampton, of St. Paul. He also had 20 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren, Ettel said.

Visitation for Mann will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday at O’Halloran & Murphy Funeral Home, 575 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul. His funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, 60 Kent St., St. Paul. Interment at Oakland Cemetery will follow.

Memorials are requested to St. Philip & St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 501 N. Dale St., Suite 201, St. Paul, MN 55103.