Three Miles in Jasper: The Lynching of James Byrd Jr.
“Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.”
Ida B. Wells (1862–1931)
In Jasper, a sleepy former logging town in East Texas, black and white residents were (and perhaps, remain) segregated in every conceivable way. The wrought iron fence that separated the graves of its African-American and Caucasian deceased was just another manifestation of this truth. Even in death, the communities remained firmly divided, the white presiding over the black, whose resting places downhill were an enduring reminder of the place they had occupied in life. It wasn’t until the brutal lynching of a hometown boy destined for a plot at the base of the knoll that the town was forced to initiate some long-needed introspection.
James Byrd Jr., 49 at the time of his unlawful execution, was dragged behind a pickup truck for three miles along Huff Creek Road, an old logging route in the black section of Jasper. His decapitated remains were found on a Monday morning, callously discarded in front of one of the town’s black churches, a warning…
