Texas town reflects on dragging death ahead of execution
Juan A. Lozano, Associated Press Updated 12:42 pm CDT, Sunday, April 21, 2019
Photo: Juan Lozano, AP
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In this Wednesday, April 10, 2019, photo Mylinda Byrd Washington, 66, right, and Louvon Byrd Harris, 61, hold up photographs of their brother James Byrd Jr. in Houston. James Byrd Jr. was the victim of what is considered to be one of the most gruesome hate crime murders in recent Texas history.
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JASPER, Texas (AP) -- A technology company was almost ready to bring up to 300 new jobs to Jasper, Texas, but in the final stages of recent negotiations, a potential deal-breaker emerged: the community's history as the place where three white men dragged a black man behind a pickup, killing him.
The 1998 death of James Byrd Jr. was one of the most gruesome hate crimes in U.S. history, and it gave the company president pause in the discussions about where to locate his firm's newest facility. Local clergy and community leaders made their case that the town of 7,600 people is not defined by a murder that happened almost 21 years ago.
They were able to convince the executive "that we are a lot different than what the world sees us as," said Eddie Hopkins, head of the Jasper Economic Development Corporation.
The town's past will be revisited this coming week, when the convicted ringleader in Byrd's slaying is scheduled to be executed. Local leaders insist Jasper is a welcoming place that punished Byrd's killers and will never forget what happened to him. But other townspeople, as well as members of Byrd's family, believe Jasper has never fully accepted the crime's place in its history. They say some tensions between the white and black communities remain unresolved.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Texas-town-reflects-on-dragging-death-ahead-of-13783622.php
Court upholds conviction, death sentence in James Byrd dragging death
February 26, 2018
John William King insists that his tattoos of racists symbols, including one of a black man hanging from a tree, don't mean what they appear to mean.
A federal appeals court says they do and, taken in context with his other white supremacist statements, made it impossible for his attorneys to argue that King didn't have racist intent when he killed a black man.
A three-judge panel from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans cited the tattoos and their meaning among the reasons for upholding the conviction and death sentence of the 43-year-old King in the dragging death of 49-year-old James Byrd in June 1998.
The 25-page decision, authored by Judge Carolyn Dineen King, dismissed all of John King's arguments about the effectiveness of his attorneys at trial and for not doing more to downplay his ties to racists groups and statements.
More:
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/02/26/court-upholds-conviction-death-sentence-james-byrd-dragging-death
President Barack Obama, reacts with the mother of Matthew Shepard, Judy Shepard, second left, and James Byrd Jr.'s sisters, Louvon Harris, left, and Betty Byrd Boatner, second right, during a White House reception commemorating the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
John William King,
On his way to death row.
James Byrd Jr.
Rest In Peace.
