James Byrd Jr.'s 1998 murder by three white supremacists who chained him behind a pickup and dragged him for miles until he died, sparked a nation wide wave of revulsion that led to a number of states passing tougher hate crimes laws.
It was one of the most horrifying and unforgettable events in this country’s recent history. In the pre-dawn hours of June 7, 1998, a black man named James Byrd Jr. was walking home from a party in Jasper Texas, when he was stopped by three white men. John William King, Lawrence Russell Brewer and Shawn Berry were cruising and drinking beer, and they offered Byrd a ride home. He got in the bed of their pickup truck, but they didn’t take him home. They drove him to a desolate, wooded road east of town, chained him to the back of the truck by his ankles, and dragged him for more than three miles along the road.
By the time the men untied his body from the back of the truck, Byrd’s head and right arm had been severed. They ditched his torso at the gate of one of Jasper County’s oldest black cemeteries.
That morning, the county sheriff found a lighter with three interlocking Ks on the bloody trail on the road. It was the first of many signs that the brutal murder was an act of white supremacy.
By the time the men untied his body from the back of the truck, Byrd’s head and right arm had been severed. They ditched his torso at the gate of one of Jasper County’s oldest black cemeteries.
That morning, the county sheriff found a lighter with three interlocking Ks on the bloody trail on the road. It was the first of many signs that the brutal murder was an act of white supremacy.
John William King was the first of the three to go to trial. He was a member of the Confederate Knights of America, a small North Carolina faction of the Ku Klux Klan. He is decorated with tattoos of a black man lynched from a cross, a Confederate flag, a Nazi swastika, and the words "Aryan Pride."
DemocracyNow.com
For the last 8 years the victim's son, Ross Byrd 32, has been fighting to stop the execution of his father's white supremacist murderers. Ross Byrd's opposition to the the death penalty isn't shared by some other members of Byrd's family.
Victim's son objects as Texas sets execution in hate crime death
"You can't fight murder with murder," Ross Byrd, 32, told Reuters late Tuesday, the night before Wednesday's scheduled execution of Lawrence Russell Brewer for one of the most notorious hate crimes in modern times.
"Life in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want."
Brewer is scheduled to die by lethal injection after 6 p.m. local time in Huntsville, Texas.
Byrd says the execution of Brewer is simply another expression of the hate shown toward his father on that dark night in 1998. Everybody, he said, including the government, should choose not to continue that cycle.
Texas is a virtual execution factory, putting for more people to death than any other state, with 17 executions in 2010. So far there have been 235 executions under Governor Rick Perry alone. The people Texas puts to death are disproportionately low income, brown and black.
Ross Byrd's principled opposition to the Death Penalty should be an inspiration to us all.
James Byrd Jr.
Update: Lawrence Russell Brewer was put to death in Texas this evening.