Free Republic

John William King, 44, convicted two decades ago for killing James Byrd Jr. in an act of unfathomable racist brutality in the small town of Jasper, was put to death by the State of Texas on Wednesday night with a dose of pentobarbital. The execution, carried out at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville, came after the United States Supreme Court turned down Mr. King’s last petition for a stay. He was pronounced dead at 7:08 p.m., said Jeremy Desel, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Mr. King kept his eyes closed as witnesses arrived to the...

.........The transcripts were released late last week by the Clinton presidential library and are just being pored over by thirsty media. His wife's proposed presidential run has made all things Clinton once again a hot commodity. The biggest reveal in the transcripts is then-President Clinton joking during closed-door preparations for his 1999 State of the Union speech that then-Republican representative Tom DeLay of Sugar Land was “probably a major suspect” in the horrific 1998 dragging death and murder of Jasper resident James Byrd.......... Hearing Clinton's tone and inflection would be a big help, but we may never hear this juicy...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — White supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous dragging death slaying of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas. Byrd, 49, was chained to the back of a pickup truck and pulled whip-like to his death along a bumpy asphalt road in one of the most grisly hate crime murders in recent Texas history. Brewer, 44, was asked if he had any final words, to which he replied: "No. I have no final statement." He glanced at his parents watching through a nearby window, took several deep breaths and...

Beneath the guard towers and behind the razor wire of a Texas prison, Lawrence Brewer lifts his arm to display his racist tattoos. “Like a cross burning and an intertwined KKK,” he explains, showing off the images cut into his flesh that turned his body into a billboard for hate. His worldview of racial relations came from an earlier stint in prison. “Watching the blacks and the Mexicans and other races literally beat people near death. So I came out after four years of that, with that mentality,” he said. What he did after he came out of prison made...

Racial Politics: After passing a resolution condemning Tea Party racism, the NAACP must confront its own tolerance of bigotry. The post-racial society we were promised seems to be drowning in a sea of hypocrisy. The historic civil rights organization famous for its Image Awards seems to be having problems with its own. The latest chink in its armor is a speech by a black Agriculture Department official at an NAACP event that, if given by a white person at a Tea Party event, could rightfully be called racist. It will not get an Image Award. If character is defined by...

Documentary To Air On Jasper Murder Multi Ethnic Filmmakers Shoot Documentary Over Racist Murder, Town Posted: 12:27 p.m. EST January 17, 2003 Updated: 12:58 p.m. EST January 17, 2003 FORT WORTH, Texas -- Two segregated film crews, one black and one white, used the perspective of race to create a documentary centered on the brutal dragging death of a black man by three whites five years ago in Jasper, Texas. The New York filmmakers behind the "Two Towns of Jasper" found the differences in perspective before filming began and the divide only grew more distinct during the two-year project....