However, the three White supremacists who murdered Byrd, Shawn Berry, 23, Lawrence Brewer, 31, and John King, 23, were so disdainful of Byrd’s humanity they left his remains sprawled throughout the sleepy town of Jasper, Texas in one of most heinous hate crimes in American history.
Berry, Brewer and King seemingly invoked the bloodthirsty legacy of their forefathers, who had dragged countless Black men through towns across America over the centuries, when they chained Byrd to the back of Berry’s truck and dragged him for about three miles through Jasper.
Berry, Brewer and King were tried and convicted for Byrd’s murder.
Brewer and King were the first White men ever to be sentenced to death for killing a Black person in the history of Texas.
Juxtapose the lynching of James Byrd in 1998 and the consequences suffered by the men who murdered him, to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and the plight of their killers in 2020.
