Explain why James Byrd was murdered?
James Byrd was murdered because he was black and in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the early hours of 7th June, 1998 James Byrd walked alone down a lonely stretch of road near the small town of Jasper, Texas. Byrd was a 49 year old unemployed vacuum cleaner salesman. Three men in a 1982 Ford pickup approached him. They offered him a lift, which, it is believed, Byrd accepted. The three men were; John William King (aged 24), Shawn Allen Berry (23) and Lawrence Russel Brewer. They drove him to a deserted corner of the backwords, and after a struggle they chained him to the truck by his ankles. Byrd was dragged for two miles, he may have been conscious at the time of death; when his head was finally torn off by concrete drainage culvert. The next day, the police found Byrd’s head and upper torso, including his right arm, shoulder and neck, in a ditch about 1.5km away from the rest of his body, which was found dumped, between the town’s cemetery and the church. King, Brewer and Berry were held as suspects of the murder of James Byrd just hours after his death. Two of the three were known to be white supremacists. All three were charged with the trials for there part in Byrd’s lynching. Kind was not raised in a racist family however it is rumoured he was beat and raped in prison by black inmates which was what turned Byrd into a white supremacists, however this cannot be proven. After his apparent rape he had his body covered with 65% of Nazi icons. King was convicted of capital murder, Brewer was also convicted of the same crime and both men have since received the death penalty. Shawn Berry received a life imprisonment for his part in the murder.
To what extent were the trials of the murderers of Emmet Till and James Byrd different?
The trial of Emmet Till was not fair this was because of the corrupt justice system and the illegal Jim Crow Laws. Black people were not treated the same as whites and white people were known to be superior. The similarities of the murders were that the jury’s were white in the Till case and mainly white in the Byrd case and all the pleas were of not guilty. The differences were that in Till’s cases the jury’s were chosen on skin colour as there were no blacks on the jury in 1955. Byrd’s trial was fair but Till’s case verdict was unfair because the jury was usually racist and the murderers were let off.
Explain the similarities and differences between the reactions to these two murders.
The similarities of the murders are that people fear change and people may be raised in racist families because of older generations being racist. They are the main reasons why racism is still ongoing today. The prison systems do not help to stop racism, especially in America where racism is believed to be bread from prisons. The differences in the murders are the generations, when Emmet Till was murdered racism was big and the Jim Crow laws applied. When the James Byrd murder was committed, racism was not as big and more people saw blacks as equal as whites. In the Emmet Till murder the reactions would have been different because of the mind set of the people, killing a black person child or adult was deemed acceptable if they broke the Jim Crow laws and the Jury system was so corrupt (all white jury – based on colour of skin), the murderers would not of been punished however the reaction to the James Byrd murder was different as people have grown up in this generation with a different mindset because of the black civil rights movement. The majority of people now see blacks as equal as whites which is why the reaction to the James Byrd murder saw the murderers convicted and whites and black uniting to be pleased with the guilty verdict.
How far can these similarities and differences be explained by historical developments since 1950?
Emmet Till was murdered in August 1955. James Byrd was murdered on the 7th of June 1998. The differences in the cases are the years because the mind set of black and white people changed as the years progressed from 1955 this was mainly caused because of the Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights act saw the Jim Crow rules erased, segregation stopped and a community tearing down a segregation fence in the cemetery which speaks for itself, so afterwards blacks were allowed to be buried alongside whites. The Civil Rights act started in December 1955. When an old lady named Rosa Parks was travelling home on a bus after a hard days work. She was sat down in the middle row of the bus and soon it filled with passengers. A white man told the driver he had no seat, the driver asked the black people in the middle row to give up there seats because of the bus segregation laws at the time. Most of them did however Rosa Parks refused. Rosa Parks was later took from the bus by police force however when the press heard about the incident, a write up was released in black and white papers. More people heard about the incident and the black community decided it was time to stand up for equal rights. Bus Boycotts were planned to stop black and white segregation on the busses. After a yearly long boycott the Supreme Court eventually ruled against segregated busses and blacks were allowed to sit alongside whites on the busses. The black community thought if segregation could be stopped on busses, then it should be stopped everywhere. Protests and sittings were made, until white only schools accepted black pupils and other companies and shops stopped segregation. In 1964-68 all anti-discrimination laws were passed and black people eventually won equal rights. The black community were to be treated the same as whites however not everyone’s mindset changed and racism still continued after the Civil Rights Act. The man behind the non-violent protests and sittings was Martin Luther King and he was assassinated in 1968. Not everyone accepted equal rights and now in 2003 although racism is a minor figure in the population, it is ongoing and seems to never end because of reasons such as upbringing, stereotyping and racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
