Summarized account On June 7th 1998, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old African American male, was walking home alone after a night of drinking with friends and family in Jasper, Texas. As Byrd was walking home, he was stopped and offered a ride from three drunk white men. Byrd accepted the ride and climbed into the back of the pickup truck. The men in the truck were Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King, and they had no intention of taking Byrd home that night. Instead, they drove Bryd to a desolate area on the east side of town, pulled him out of the truck, and brutally beat him. After beating Byrd, the men chained him to Shawn Berry’s truck by his ankles and dragged him three miles down an asphalt road. Byrd was hurled around tight corners causing him to be pitched from side to side. He was killed when his right arm and head were severed off of his body after striking a concrete sewage …show more content…
Berry’s father had died when he was younger, and he dropped of school in middle school. He never did talk much about his mother,” (citation). said Mr. Wood, one of a number of people to say that Berry and his mother not very close. “For the circumstances he was raised in, he was a good kid… He was raised on the street… I tried to help the kid because I felt sorry for him, although I had to let him go because he was not dependable.” said Snelson (Unfathomable Crime, Unlikely Figure). During the trial, Brewer testified that Berry slit Byrd’s throat before they dragged Bryd’s body, but the jury decided there was little evidence to support that claim. Despite the black community’s concern for Berry’s verdict the jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison. The final verdict brought justice to this violent hate crime, and changed the way Jasper and courts around the U.S. addressed racial inequality in the justice