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A Death in Texas by Dina Temple-Raston: Not all Books are Equal - By Bruce McKinney A world of madness A review by Bruce McKinney Sitting on the shelves of bookstores across America and around the world is 316 pages of mercury by weight. It is called A Death in Texas and was written by Dina Temple-Raston, a Bloomberg Business News reporter. It tells the story of a murder committed in Jasper, Texas in 1998 by three young men. The victim, James Byrd, Jr. 49, was black and his killers white. This is a story that many people know something about. Most did not follow the story closely but "know" it anyway. Their "knowing" often reflects their perception of "race" and "southern race" issues generally rather than their specific knowledge of the case. People bring their opinions and find in the story, whether expressed on talk radio, in film, in a book or a lecture, confirmation of their views. Often of course the individual chooses their source of interpretation. You then hear what you believe and believe what you hear even if it isn't true. In America today we too often listen to our favorite interpreters confirm a version of facts that comports with our own. "Know" is today "no" guarantee of accurate interpretation. Regardless of which side you are on this too often is true. The FBI defines a hate crime to be "a criminal offense committed against a person, property or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin." The killing of James Byrd, Jr. in 1998 was defined in those terms by the legal authorities. This is the story. Mr. Byrd, a 49-year-old occasional day laborer and frequent night drinker, was an ineffective son in an otherwise effective family. When others might have been home Mr. Byrd was out nursing a beer. In the evening of June 6th, 1988 he was invited into a truck by three younger men he probably knew. The chance for another drink, some company or simply a ride home may have induced him to get in. These men, Bill King [23], Russell Brewer [32] and Shawn Berry [23], then drove a pick-up truck, with Byrd in the back out to Huff Creek Road, a tired underdeveloped area. The men then beat him, tied him by chain to their truck and dragged him for three miles. Along the way he died and was decapitated. Where they beat him they left tire tracks, beer bottles, CD cases, a socket wrench, a cigarette lighter with the initials KKK and their finger prints. The following morning, when the body was discovered law enforcement officers simply walked back up the road, following the trail of human debris, to its source. There was little effort to conceal the crime. It was insanity in broad daylight.
A Death in Texas by Dina Temple-Raston: Not all Books are Equal - By Bruce McKinney James Byrd Jasper County Sheriff Billy Rowles immediately decided he would need help and called the FBI, a decision to bring in outsiders. In making that call he committed his community and his county to addressing its responsibility. In taking that step he committed the town and county to an honest accounting. In taking this step he moved away from the history of the south. The crime would not disappear. It would be reported, investigated and if, as seemed immediately likely, the culprits apprehended, they would be tried. Ms. Temple-Raston then paints the historical background. Jasper isn't just a place. Here is how she describes it. "Jasper was about as deep as Deep East Texas could get, seventy miles closer to Natchez, Mississippi, than to the capital city of Austin. Sitting at the easternmost edge of the state, at the top of the long skinny county that shared its name, the town of 8,600 was more Dixie than Lone Star. It sat just under an hour's drive from Vidor, Texas, the capital of Klan country, where until the early 1990s one could still see signs warning "Niggers Get Out of Town After Dark." At one time a modestly prosperous timber town, Jasper had been reduced to a curious thing, a place near noplace. By the end of the twentieth century, its poverty showed like the wrists and ankles of adolescents exceeding their cuffs. The entire community, from the Aarant family to the Zunigas, filled just 79 pages of large type in the Southwestern Bell phone book. The yellow pages, in the same thin volume, added only 129 pages more. Each year the directory seemed to get slimmer, proof positive of what everyone already knew: Jasper was a town in decline." The suspects were quickly captured. The county handled the trial and the outcomes never seemed in doubt. Only the sentences were uncertain. Two of the men, Bill King and Russell Brewer, received death sentences and the third, Shawn Berry, a life sentence with the possibility of parole at age 60. At the time of his sentence in 1999 he was 24. King and Brewer are now on death row awaiting execution [Links to the Texas executions site are provided at the end of this article]. The murder was viewed, from the outset, as a hate crime and local and Federal officials united to obtain convictions. For a time the community also seemed to speak with one voice, both the black and white communities working together, to present a united front and mutual support to bring Jasper, the town and the county, through the pressure and national humiliation of being branded as a place where racial hate had survived deep into the 20th century. The book reports that later, the united front broke down as the community seemed to revert to the long established pattern of racial and economic separation that had always characterized the area. Like the Mississippi that sometimes spills its banks, in time the water recedes.
A Death in Texas by Dina Temple-Raston: Not all Books are Equal - By Bruce McKinney Four lives lost. Six years later and 1,500 miles away I mentioned to a bus driver my understanding of what had happened in Jasper, Texas in 1998 and 1999. From the row behind, an older man interjected. "That ain't how I heard it." I said nothing but have been left to wonder what talk radio station he's been listening to because he certainly didn't get his version from this book. So as I said at the beginning of this article, with respect to race we too often start with our conclusions and choose the facts that support our case. It doesn't make it right, only dangerous. Finally I need to note that an allegation has been made that Ms. Temple-Raston appropriated the words of others, without attribution, in a few places. I think she picked up some language from newspaper accounts and too closely laid the words down in her text. But this is her book and no one else's and it is very well done. Her language is too unique for it to be otherwise. This is an exceptionally easy book to read. The eyes complete the sentences before the meanings reach the brain. I recommend it but don't expect it to last long. Three hundred and three pages might sound like a good chunk but this is one of those books that ends too soon. For those who want to follow this story all the way to its end the State of Texas Department of Criminal Justice provides a website with the status of those on death row: Lawrence Russell Brewer and John William King [Bill] It was first printed in 2002 and is available in paperback online and in bookstores. 2 April 2005 Gallup, New Mexico. It has been reported that Fauso Arellano, 32, a local resident was attacked yesterday in a way eerily similar to the Jasper, Texas attack in 1998. At approximately 4:00 am on the morning of April 1st, Mr. Arellano was tied to a car, dragged a mile and then left for dead in the middle of a busy city intersection. John P. Talamante was arrested soon after. Local officials are stressing their belief that this crime occured as the outcome of a drug dispute and are downplaying it as a hate crime.

A Death in Texas by Dina Temple-Raston: Not all Books are Equal

- By Bruce McKinney

A world of madness

A review by Bruce McKinney

Sitting on the shelves of bookstores across America and around the world is 316 pages of mercury by weight. It is called A Death in Texas and was written by Dina Temple-Raston, a Bloomberg Business News reporter. It tells the story of a murder committed in Jasper, Texas in 1998 by three young men. The victim, James Byrd, Jr. 49, was black and his killers white. This is a story that many people know something about. Most did not follow the story closely but "know" it anyway. Their "knowing" often reflects their perception of "race" and "southern race" issues generally rather than their specific knowledge of the case. People bring their opinions and find in the story, whether expressed on talk radio, in film, in a book or a lecture, confirmation of their views. Often of course the individual chooses their source of interpretation. You then hear what you believe and believe what you hear even if it isn't true. In America today we too often listen to our favorite interpreters confirm a version of facts that comports with our own. "Know" is today "no" guarantee of accurate interpretation. Regardless of which side you are on this too often is true.

The FBI defines a hate crime to be "a criminal offense committed against a person, property or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin." The killing of James Byrd, Jr. in 1998 was defined in those terms by the legal authorities. This is the story.

Mr. Byrd, a 49-year-old occasional day laborer and frequent night drinker, was an ineffective son in an otherwise effective family. When others might have been home Mr. Byrd was out nursing a beer. In the evening of June 6th, 1988 he was invited into a truck by three younger men he probably knew. The chance for another drink, some company or simply a ride home may have induced him to get in. These men, Bill King [23], Russell Brewer [32] and Shawn Berry [23], then drove a pick-up truck, with Byrd in the back out to Huff Creek Road, a tired underdeveloped area. The men then beat him, tied him by chain to their truck and dragged him for three miles. Along the way he died and was decapitated. Where they beat him they left tire tracks, beer bottles, CD cases, a socket wrench, a cigarette lighter with the initials KKK and their finger prints. The following morning, when the body was discovered law enforcement officers simply walked back up the road, following the trail of human debris, to its source. There was little effort to conceal the crime. It was insanity in broad daylight.

A Death in Texas by Dina Temple-Raston: Not all Books are Equal

- By Bruce McKinney

James Byrd

Jasper County Sheriff Billy Rowles immediately decided he would need help and called the FBI, a decision to bring in outsiders. In making that call he committed his community and his county to addressing its responsibility. In taking that step he committed the town and county to an honest accounting. In taking this step he moved away from the history of the south. The crime would not disappear. It would be reported, investigated and if, as seemed immediately likely, the culprits apprehended, they would be tried.

Ms. Temple-Raston then paints the historical background. Jasper isn't just a place. Here is how she describes it.

"Jasper was about as deep as Deep East Texas could get, seventy miles closer to Natchez, Mississippi, than to the capital city of Austin. Sitting at the easternmost edge of the state, at the top of the long skinny county that shared its name, the town of 8,600 was more Dixie than Lone Star. It sat just under an hour's drive from Vidor, Texas, the capital of Klan country, where until the early 1990s one could still see signs warning "Niggers Get Out of Town After Dark." At one time a modestly prosperous timber town, Jasper had been reduced to a curious thing, a place near noplace. By the end of the twentieth century, its poverty showed like the wrists and ankles of adolescents exceeding their cuffs. The entire community, from the Aarant family to the Zunigas, filled just 79 pages of large type in the Southwestern Bell phone book. The yellow pages, in the same thin volume, added only 129 pages more. Each year the directory seemed to get slimmer, proof positive of what everyone already knew: Jasper was a town in decline."

The suspects were quickly captured. The county handled the trial and the outcomes never seemed in doubt. Only the sentences were uncertain. Two of the men, Bill King and Russell Brewer, received death sentences and the third, Shawn Berry, a life sentence with the possibility of parole at age 60. At the time of his sentence in 1999 he was 24. King and Brewer are now on death row awaiting execution [Links to the Texas executions site are provided at the end of this article].

The murder was viewed, from the outset, as a hate crime and local and Federal officials united to obtain convictions. For a time the community also seemed to speak with one voice, both the black and white communities working together, to present a united front and mutual support to bring Jasper, the town and the county, through the pressure and national humiliation of being branded as a place where racial hate had survived deep into the 20th century. The book reports that later, the united front broke down as the community seemed to revert to the long established pattern of racial and economic separation that had always characterized the area. Like the Mississippi that sometimes spills its banks, in time the water recedes.

A Death in Texas by Dina Temple-Raston: Not all Books are Equal

- By Bruce McKinney

Four lives lost.

Six years later and 1,500 miles away I mentioned to a bus driver my understanding of what had happened in Jasper, Texas in 1998 and 1999. From the row behind, an older man interjected. "That ain't how I heard it." I said nothing but have been left to wonder what talk radio station he's been listening to because he certainly didn't get his version from this book. So as I said at the beginning of this article, with respect to race we too often start with our conclusions and choose the facts that support our case. It doesn't make it right, only dangerous.

Finally I need to note that an allegation has been made that Ms. Temple-Raston appropriated the words of others, without attribution, in a few places. I think she picked up some language from newspaper accounts and too closely laid the words down in her text. But this is her book and no one else's and it is very well done. Her language is too unique for it to be otherwise.

This is an exceptionally easy book to read. The eyes complete the sentences before the meanings reach the brain. I recommend it but don't expect it to last long. Three hundred and three pages might sound like a good chunk but this is one of those books that ends too soon. For those who want to follow this story all the way to its end the State of Texas Department of Criminal Justice provides a website with the status of those on death row: Lawrence Russell Brewer and John William King [Bill]

It was first printed in 2002 and is available in paperback online and in bookstores.

2 April 2005 Gallup, New Mexico. It has been reported that Fauso Arellano, 32, a local resident was attacked yesterday in a way eerily similar to the Jasper, Texas attack in 1998. At approximately 4:00 am on the morning of April 1st, Mr. Arellano was tied to a car, dragged a mile and then left for dead in the middle of a busy city intersection. John P. Talamante was arrested soon after. Local officials are stressing their belief that this crime occured as the outcome of a drug dispute and are downplaying it as a hate crime.