In Texas, a Decades-Old Hate Crime, Forgiven but Never Forgotten

Is there some sort of conspiracy to avoid the word "lynching" in discussing this horrible episode? I remember having similar thoughts about coverage at the time. I do notice that a few commentators use the term, while others mention Emmet Till or related aspects of racial violence, but there is still seems to be a weird disconnect as if that particular type of event is a thing of the past, so the murder of Mr. Bryd must be something else. No it wasn't. Mr. Byrd was lynched. One shouldn't have to be a white southerner like me to see that when white people put ropes and chains on a black person, who subsequently winds up dead, that's a lynching.

When are we going to start to realize that racism has no face. It is a blatant war against the very Image and Likeness of God in which human beings were created, and which includes ALL of us. In that image there are "...men of every race and nation, people and tongue." It is envy of the worst sort.

This nation will never move beyond its racism, sexism, xenophobia and hate. We keep on repeating the same mistakes, over and over the decades. We live in a unjust nation. Yet our nation hides behind the flag and behind religion. Not just any religion but the evangelical stripe of the Christian religion.

Is it the press that pushes this misplaced obligation to “forgive” on the families of victims? It seems fairly recent and I hear it shouted out at at bereaved families at press conferences, “Do you forgive” the monster who murdered your child, or grandmother or father? Why is that miserable grace required of them when we have growing hate crimes because of our deranged president, police forces riddled with racial biases and police organizations that refuse to acknowledge it, and prosecutors like the dispicible California man profiled elsewhere in the paper today? None of us, white or black need to forgive them. We need to expose them, remove them from positions of power, put them in jail without letting ourselves get riddled with the corrosive hate that has turned them into the hollowed out containers of poison that they are. It’s not forgiveness we should require but perserverence.

The grave was desecrated twice. Tells you all that you really need to know about this "healing" community. In Texas, racism is always just under the surface. It remains there as long as the dark people know their place. But as soon as the social order is disrupted, out come the racists.

I thought of this incident immediately as I watchedg a bad-taste Allstate TV commercial with a guy being dragged behind a truck. I don't see how anyone can think it's appropriate to connect such horror with their insurance company or other business.

As an opponent of the death penalty in any case, I nevertheless can understand why the relatives of Jasper Byrd went to witness the execution of one of his killers. But executions will not erase the bigotry; in fact, one could argue, they might cover it up. Many white Southerners will rightfully deplore this gruesome crime and will say, see - it was punished the harshest way. We are not who we were. But short of such horrific and barbaric act, they nevertheless live - in my opinion as a white Northerner visiting there multiple times and doing some research - the racist lives they claim they left behind.

Texas sentenced two of the three murderers to death. One is dead, and the other one would be were it not for leftists who oppose the death penalty. Why do you leftists support the people who commit these kinds of murders?

The article is well-written-and it is a missed opportunity. It would have been much better if it pointed out that, in context, this incident is just one of hundreds of lynchings that have taken place, and that would take place if people could get away with it. Thankfully the comments show that this is not an isolated incident. The terrible thing about law enforcement is that not nearly enough is done about preventative actions so that something like this could never happen again.

Mr. Byrd's family are better people than I'll ever be. I live nowhere near them, but the horror of his death and the motive behind it make me recoil with the deepest disgust which has not lessened since the day I learned of this horrific crime. I don't think I'd be able to forgive the perpetrators a single thing.

Why is Mr.Mr. Byrd's death a hate crime while Yankel Rosenbaum's is described in this very paper as "blacks rioted because a black child died in a car accident caused by a Jewish driver" and in another story as "a fight between blacks and Jews". In order not to be racist let's see this described as "whites rioting" and that it was "caused" by a white man being raped in prison by a black male (apparently that is how King became a racist). and "a fight between whites and blacks". When will this Jewish scholar be shown the same respect as this black criminal? When will anyone complain about the discrepency is punishment of Mr. Byrd's killers and Mr. Rosenbaums?

I’m a 61-year-old white, Jewish woman from Connecticut by way of Massachusetts, and originally New Jersey. I remember VERY well when James Byrd, Jr. was killed, the reporting of his death, the arrests, and the trial. When I saw today’s headline, all I could think was, Has it really been 20 years already. Sad to say for innocent residents of the town, I have never forgotten the name Jasper, TX. And while I’ve hardly thought of this horrific crime committed against Mr. Byrd every single day, it has never been very far from my thoughts. Particularly in the last several years, as incidents of hate speech, hate crimes, and violence against black Americans and other minorities have soared, I have often recalled James Byrd’s agonizing death that night. Somehow, this particular crime has carved a firm place in my psyche as one of the most memorable and horrible markers of how depraved otherwise “normal” human beings can become when through callous, “everyday” racism. And I wonder where the hatreds and divisions purposefully being inflamed today by so many politicians and others will lead. But for whatever it’s worth, I hope that Mr Byrd’s family can take a tiny bit of solace from knowing that there are people all over this country who remember their loved one, and that the injustice done to him has not been forgotten.

I am a 71 year old white man and I want to tell the Byrd family that I think of James Byrd every day. Since I learned of his death and how he was murdered in this paper, not a day passes that I don't think of him. Every time I see my brother we mention Byrd's name. It is an important reminder, and a symbolic, martyred death which must never be forgotten. I often tell people of what happened to Mr Byrd that day, and urge them to think of him every day. My hope is, someday, every American will know that story and the animals amongst us will vanish from this country. There are many other names, but for me Mr Byrd's death symbolizes all the murdered and the sickness which pervades the country.

I remember first reading about this shocking crime vividly, and I have never forgotten it. May his name, and his cruel death, never be forgotten. May his family find peace and light.

10 years ago, I was teaching about the Harlem Renaissance, and the topic for that day concerned the anti-lynching campaign. In addition to readings, I also showed students photographs from the era. I remember one white male student asking if things like that still happened. And I said yes, that there are still racially-motivated killings. The James Byrd murder was my example. My cousin who is only about 5 or so years older than me ((I will soon turn 56) remembers seeing a black man hanging from a tree in Mississippi when he was a child.

My prayers and thoughts for the Byrd family. It will take generations upon generations for them to have this monstrous act dim in their collective familial memories. I only hope that they find moments of joy and happiness amongst the sadness as their lives go on.

In 1998, death for the two perps and a life sentence for the third, was too lenient for their hate crime, which destroyed the Byrd's family. Have times truly changed. Just listen to Trump during his campaign orations, until now, and decide for ourselves.

You have to completely dehumanize a person to do what was done to Jasper Byrd. We know the Nazis did that to the Jews, the Roma, the dissenters, and everyone else that they murdered. The Klan in America did the same thing when it lynched African Americans. Of course the real question is how do we stop the dehumanization that leads to acts as horrific as dragging a person behind a truck until he's dead. We won't find the answers coming from a party like Trump's GOP and, since the people at the top set the attitude it's more likely we're going to see more hateful dehumanization than we used to.

I remember this uniquely, quintessentially American event like it happened last Saturday night. A (white) Southern sheriff, for perhaps the first time in history, ruefully acknowledged the stark truth for the three killers’ motivation: race hatred. I remember thinking “why would three men abduct a man who was intellectually challenged, inebriated and defenseless, chain him to a floor of a flatbed truck, and drive him three miles along a country road, eventually beheading him on the edge of a culvert?” All three men knew James Byrd, by all accounts, a harmless soul. What have black people done to white Americans to deserve this? Emmett Till, killed for no good reason; the white woman, Carolyn Bryant, recently acknowledged that “nothing” happened” when he went into the Bryant grocery store to buy candy that late August day, 63 years ago. I bring up the Till case because of the extreme savagery and mutilation of his body. It seems that white rage knows no depths when it comes to the complete, absolute and total annihilation of the black person, especially if the intended target is male. It certainly comes as no surprise to hear this president complain that “very fine people” are white supremscists, the very description of the three killers mentioned here. When America finally, after 242 years, wants to have “the conversation” about race and rage; about hate and helplessness, I hope someone will let me know. I’ll be 74 next month and I’m still waiting.

I remember when this happen. I have a sister and several friends who live in Texas. We as black people cannot and should not allow these type of crimes to just pass us by as if it is not a big deal. If I am not mistaken that is what the March on Washington that Dr. King did was all about. As well as the Million Man March.

Mr. Byrd is not forgotten. Love and compassion to his family.

"A few residents even pushed the idea that the murder was a drug deal gone wrong, a stubborn theory that endures today. " This is TEXAS - many are sure it was suicide, too.

@William Case from the United States cites the fact that more black people killed white people than white people killed black people in single perpetrator-single victim crimes in 2016. Honestly, I had to wrestle with making the connection between that statistic and the Byrd murder. At length, I finally had to conclude that it was just one more example of the "What-about-ism" that passes for reasoned argument among that portion of our electorate characterized by white and right and "Don't confuse me with relevance." I don't know that William Case is white or right...but I do know that the statistic makes no sense whatsoever in the context of the brutal Byrd murder. Remembering is the only way to stay vigilant. We are aware that the judicial system has dealt with the three sub-human perpetrators of this one outrage but that thousands and thousands of their first cousins slither through our streets today, prepared to strike down targets of opportunity among people of color. Some even hold office.

“Initially, Sheriff Rowles believed Mr. Byrd was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. But the depraved method of death, the gruesome trail left behind and a police colleague’s insistence the crime was racially motivated, convinced him that this was something different, something dark.” The absolute, utter importance of an integrated police force. The white detective simply did not have the same life experience as his black colleague, but through listening and cooperation, they caught and convicted the murderers.

The mentality of Mr. Byrd's killers is alive in America. It was sinking below the surface slowly before Trump was elected. Now he's whipping it up to a ferocity unimaginable only a few years ago. The worst of it is that it won him the presidential election, and his fans feel emboldened and are highly motivated to perpetuate and extend the grasp of this toxicity.

"...the nation faces a spread in bias crime incidents..." Yep, the leadership of Commander-in-Chief Bone Spur and his flashlight PARDON pen shows us the way. MAGA MAGA MAGA

According to Wikipedia, one of Byrd’s killers ordered (and received) the following as his “last meal”: “…two chicken-fried steaks smothered in gravy with sliced onions; a triple-patty bacon cheeseburger; a cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapeños; a bowl of fried okra with ketchup; one pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread; three fully loaded fajitas; a meat-lover’s pizza; one pint of Blue Bell vanilla Ice Cream; a slab of peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts; and three root beers.” I guess the reason people believe there’s justice is the next world is because there certainly isn’t any in this one.

I will never forget. Thank you for reporting. Strange fruit.

And Trump is President. Only in America. And I am supposed to be proud to be an American.

It is that streak of hatred and meanness that the president promotes and keeps alive at every rally he holds throughout the country. No wonder the racial fault lines in America are so wide as to be an unbridgeable chasm. Rather that spew racial animosity, the president should visit that Texas town and offer condolences to the family and the community. Such a gesture would go a little way towards acknowledging the ugliness of two hundred years of white southern racism.

Interracial violence is actually relatively rare. The vast majority of murders are intraracial, not interracial. However, most intraracial murders are black-on-white, not white-on-black. The 2016 FBI Uniform Crime Report (Expanded Homicide Data Table 3: Race, Ethnicity, and Sex of Victim by Race, Ethnicity, and Sex of Offender) shows 533 blacks murdered whites (including Hispanics) while 243 whites (including Hispanics) murdered blacks. This isn’t a statistical aberration. Previous UCRs show the same trend. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/...

Deplorables would tell the Byrd family to 'get over it'. Black people are always supposed to get over it. It seems that Jasper is still in denial. The Sheriff says some 'mean' people tied a man to the back of a car and dragged him until his head came off. Those mean weren't 'mean'. They were racists. And they didn't come from outer space. They were born and bred right there and probably learned their racism at the dinner table. Look at the image of Mr. Byrd grave. There's a fence around it because it's been desecrated. TWICE. A lynched Black man isn't even allowed to rest in peace. Those 'mean' men are in jail. So there must be more 'mean' people in town. God bless Mr. Byrd and his family. Once again, Black people are called upon to forgive the unforgivable and once again, they do.

I have never forgotten this hideous evidence of racism, alive and well, in East Texas. It made me physically ill when I heard about it. Then it just seemed to drop out of the news. Horrible. Nothing can erase what was done to this poor man, but he is entitled to justice.

A group called Ron Orlando and Mystery Train put out a heart-breaking, tear-inducing song called "Jasper Texas." I recommend it.

Wow the odds. I was recounting this crime from memory yesterday, and today a Times article. Any grade school/middle school teachers reading this?? Save for the Fall. This is educational on so many levels. People can learn from this tragedy.

there are crimes against humanity that should be neither forgotten nor forgiven and this is one of them. the Byrd family does not owe anyone their graciousness, as generous as it is.

The line between believing an entire category of people to be fundamentally different or innately inferior, and concluding that those lives do not count, is razor thin, faint, and deadly. This is why we cannot allow the ideas of nationalists and those who insist on racial hierarchies, to go unchallenged.