James Byrd, Jr.
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James Byrd, Jr. was an African-American murdered in a 1998 hate crime by Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russel Brewer, and John William King, in Jasper, Texas.
The Murder
Byrd was tied to a pickup truck with a chain and dragged about three miles. 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.
Reaction to the murder
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. His family created the James Byrd Foundation for Racial Healing after his death.
External links
- "Power of 1" page (http://www.powerof1.org/byrd.html)