Murder of James Byrd Jr.

James Byrd, Jr. (May 2, 1949 - June 7, 1998) was an African-American murdered in 1998 by Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and John William King, in Jasper, Texas.

Byrd was born and raised in Jasper, the third of seven children born to James and Stella Byrd. In 1967, Byrd was in the last segregated class to graduate from Jasper's Rowe High School. He married Thelma Adams in 1970 and relocated to Houston and later Dallas; the couple had three children before divorcing in 1993.

From 1969 to 1995 he had been in and out of prison seven times on charges of theft, forgery and parole violations. Byrd "wasn't a bad guy, just one of those people who seems to get into trouble," former Jasper Police Chief Harlan Alexander would later comment.[1]

Unemployed after an arm injury, Byrd, formerly a vacuum cleaner salesman, lived on monthly disability checks and resided in a rent-subsidized apartment. Byrd was well-known around Jasper, and could frequently be seen walking about town, as he did not own a car.

On June 7, 1998, Byrd, 49, accepted a ride from Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russel Brewer, and John William King. Instead of taking him home, however, the three men beat Byrd, tied him to their pickup truck with a chain, and dragged him about three miles. It is not known whether or not he was alive during the dragging. Although Lawrence Russell Brewer claimed that Byrd's throat had been slashed before he was dragged, forensic evidence suggests that Byrd had been attempting to keep his head up, and an autopsy suggested that Byrd was alive for much of the dragging and died only after his right arm and head were severed when his body hit a culvert.[2]

King, Berry, and Brewer dumped their victim's mutilated remains in the town's segregated black cemetery, and then went to a barbecue. [3]

State law enforcement officials and Jasper’s District Attorney determined that since King and Brewer were well-known white supremacists, the murder was a hate crime, and decided to bring in the FBI less than 24 hours after the discovery of Byrd’s brutalized remains. [4] One of Byrd's murderers, John King, had a tattoo depicting a black man hanging from a tree, and other tattoos such as Nazi symbols, the words "Aryan Pride," and the patch for the Confederate Knights of America, a gang of white supremacist inmates. [5] In a jailhouse letter to Brewer which was intercepted by jail officials, King expressed pride in the crime and said he realized he might have to die for committing it. "Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history. Death before dishonor. Sieg Heil!", King wrote. [6]

Brewer and King were sentenced to death. Berry received life in prison.

Numerous aspects of the Byrd murder echo lynching traditions, including mutilation or decapitation, and revelry, such as a barbecue or a picnic, during or after.

John King - accused of beating Byrd with a bat and then dragging him behind a truck until he died. The testimony phase of his trial started in Jasper, Texas on February 16, 1999. He was found guilty of kidnapping and murder on February 23 and was sentenced to death on February 25.

Lawrence Russell Brewer - another white supremacist convicted of the murdering Byrd. Prior to the Byrd murder, Brewer had served a prison sentence for drug possession and burglary, and he was paroled in 1991. After violating the parole in 1994, he was sent back to prison. According to his court testimony, he joined a white supremacist gang with King in order to safeguard himself from other prisoners.^[1] A state psychiatrist testified that Brewer did not appear repentant for his crimes. In the end, Brewer was also sentenced to death.

Shawn Allen Berry - The driver of the truck, Berry was the most difficult to convict of the three defendants because there was a lack of evidence to suggest that he himself was a racist. He had also claimed that his two companions were entirely responsible for the crime. King testified that it was Berry who cut Byrd's throat before he was tied to the truck, but the court decided that there was little evidence to indicate this.^[2] As a result, Berry was spared the death penalty and given a life sentence in prison.

King had previously been gang-raped in prison by black prisoners^[3] and, although he had no previous record of racism, had joined a white-supremacist prison gang, allegedly for self-protection. While in this group he was involved with many drug deals and prison gang murders/hazings. It may be that the killing of James Byrd Jr was seen as "revenge" by King.

Byrd's murder was strongly condemned by Jesse Jackson and the Martin Luther King Center as an act of vicious racism and focused national attention on the prevalence of white supremacist prison gangs. The three defendants, who were later tried and convicted for the murder, had allegedly joined such gangs while imprisoned in Texas.

The victim's family created the James Byrd Foundation for Racial Healing after his death. In 2003, a movie about the crime, called Jasper, Texas, was produced and shown on Showtime. The same year, a documentary called Two Towns of Jasper, made by filmmakers Marco Williams and Whitney Dow, premiered on PBS's P.O.V. series.

Basketball star Dennis Rodman offered to pay for Byrd's funeral. Although Byrd's family declined this offer, they accepted a $25,000 donation by Rodman to a fund started to support Byrd's family.

While at the CBS-owned WARW radio station in Washington, D.C., Doug Tracht (AKA The Greaseman) made a comment about James Byrd. after playing a song by Lauryn Hill. Tracht stated, as a reference to the quality of her music, "and they wonder why we drag them behind trucks." This incident in February 1999 proved catastrophic to his radio career, igniting a firestorm of protest from black and white listeners alike, including Donnie Simpson, who ravaged Tracht on his morning show on sister station WPGC-FM. Not only was Tracht quickly fired from WARW, he lost his position as a volunteer deputy sheriff in Falls Church, Virginia.

Some advocacy groups made an issue of this case during George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2000. They accused him of implicit racism, since as governor, he opposed special hate crime legislation. Because two of the three murderers were sentenced to death and the third to a life term in prison (all charged with and convicted of capital murder, the highest felony level in Texas), Governor Bush maintained that "we don't need tougher laws."

After Governor Rick Perry inherited the rest of George W. Bush's unexpired term, the 77th Texas Legislature passed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act on May 11, 2001.

• Dragging death
• King, Joyce. Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas. Pantheon, 2002.

• James Byrd Jr at findagrave
• Texas NAACP, James Byrd Jr at texasnaacp.org
• cnn.com Co-defendant Shawn Berry led police to the chain used to drag James Byrd Jr to death
• Jasper, Texas - Houston Chronicle feature coverage of the murder
• InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Stella Byrd television interview with Byrd's mother
• Jasper, Texas television movie
• Politically Correct Murder and Media Bias by Larry Elder, compares media coverage of the Byrd case to the murder of Ken Tillery
• Court TV Online
• Texas NAACP