Where was George Bush?
Racist gangs recruited Jasper lynchers
By
Gloria Rubac
Houston, Texas
A jury has convicted the second of three racists accused of
the murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, and the Ku Klux
Klan character of the killing is graphically apparent. In the
worst case of a racist lynching in many years in the U.S.,
three white supremacists from East Texas in June 1998 had
dragged Byrd to death behind their pick-up truck--a gruesome
murder that shocked and outraged the world.
John William King, the first to be tried for the crime, has
already been convicted and sentenced to death.
Lawrence Russell Brewer Jr. was just convicted in Bryan,
Texas--a change of venue requested by the defense. As of this
writing, the jury has yet to decide on whether he will receive
life in prison or the death penalty.
The third defendant, Shawn Berry, will be tried in
October.
On Sept. 16, the prosecution produced evidence that Byrd's
pants had been pulled down around his ankles in order to
further humiliate him. He had then been chained to the back of
the truck by his ankles and dragged for nearly three miles down
a country road. He died when his head was severed from his
body.
Pathologist Dr. Tommy Brown testified on Sept. 16 that
before decapitation ended his torture, James Byrd Jr. ground
his elbows, knees and heels to the bone, shifting his weight in
a fruitless attempt to relieve his "devastating pain."
This gruesome testimony, plus the presentation of the
25-foot rusty log chain that prosecutors charge the three
racists used to secure Byrd's ankles to the back of the pickup,
drove two of Byrd's sisters from the courtroom and left several
jurors in tears.
Bush and prison system
News reporters ask in a puzzled way how this shocking crime
could happen. But all three killers spent many years in prison,
where they joined white supremacist organizations. The media
should be asking Texas Gov. George Bush Jr., who is now running
for the Republican presidential nomination, why he and the
prison bosses in his state allow these fascist groups to openly
recruit inside one of the largest prison systems in the
country.
Doesn't this make Bush and the prison authorities partly
responsible for the lynching of Byrd?
And why were so many Black jurors disqualified in the first
trial? Many said they didn't believe in the death penalty, but
is that the real reason they were dismissed?
Why are there no African Americans on the second jury? The
trial is in Bryan, a predominantly Black city. It is adjacent
to College Station--home of the overwhelmingly white Texas
A&M University and the presidential library of George Bush
Sr.
History of racist lynchings
The horrible death of James Byrd Jr. is unfortunately not an
isolated incident.
Jasper officials claim that the city has enjoyed racial
harmony. Yet after desegregation in the 1960s, white Jasper
residents filled the public swimming pool with cement rather
than let Black kids go swimming.
Racist lynchings and Ku Klux Klan activity in the piney
woods of East Texas has long been part of the history of this
region.
Ester King has been an activist in Houston's African
American community since the 1960s. He recalled: "When I was a
child near here, my grandmother said that when she was growing
up the favorite way of lynching was to drag Black folks from
behind a horse or a wagon or a buggy.
"The whites would drag them through the Black community,
with their shotguns held up high. Undoubtedly these three men
had heard this also. This area is famous for terrorist
killing."
Jasper city authorities allowed two Klan rallies to take
place in the weeks following Byrd's murder.
Prisons hotbed of racism
Texas prisons have long been a breeding ground for racism
and Klan recruitment. The guards and other prison employees
used to bring in literature from racist groups, post it on
bulletin boards and circulate it among white prisoners. Guards
have a history of recruiting for the Klan and of pitting Black
and Latino prisoners against racist white prisoners.
In the last two decades, the prisons have been forced to
hire more African Americans and Latinos. Now most racist and
anti-Semitic literature comes in through the mail, with the
permission of prison authorities. In 1990, the Ku Klux Klan
gained clearance to mail such publications as "Negro Watch, "
"Jew Watch," and the "Knightly News" to Texas prisoners.
Klan leaders say their ability to mail to the prisoners will
help them recruit members. "We'll get prisoners out of their
white prison clothes and into white Klan robes," said Michael
Lowe, grand dragon of the Texas Knights of the KKK.
At the same time, literature from anti-racist
organizations--such as People Against Racist Terror--has many
times been banned from prisons as s "racial material" or as a
"threat to the security of the institution."
In 1998 a book by award-winning African American author Bebe
Moore Campbell was barred from Texas prisons because "the
language was racially offensive." The novel is a fictionalized
account of the racist lynching of young Emmett Till. After
appeals and the threat of a lawsuit from Campbell's editor, the
book was finally allowed in a year later.
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