Texas Tombstone of Black Man Dragged to His Death Found Desecrated

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA21LVKXTD.html

JASPER, Texas (AP) - The tombstone of a black man who was dragged to his death was found broken with a racial epithet carved into the granite, police said.

"We hoped he could rest in peace," said Stella Byrd, the mother of 1998 dragging victim James Byrd Jr. "They've done enough to him already."

Two people at the Jasper City Cemetery tending to a relative's gravesite Thursday afternoon noticed the damage, police said.

The granite headstone, noting Byrd's date of birth as May 2, 1949, was broken from its base, according to Beaumont television station KFDM.

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[FlashHarry]

1. Jesus. These people are animals.

Or Tom DeLay's minions. Same diff...

[havocmom]

2. No, I cannot think of any animal that cowardly

and angry

[i have issues]

3. Animals don't desecrate graves...

unfortunately, they're human, human scum.

[finecraft]

6. Used to drive through Jasper on my way to Beaumont

Yep...the town if frightening. They have a Dairy Queen restaurant on the main highway that should have been included in the movie Deliverance (in fact, I think some of the people I saw in the parking lot were).

[Just Me]

18. Like that "spirit" cares. Let the demons enjoy hell. n/t

[saigon68]

47. Kick

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. God DAMN these racist assholes.

I hate the fact that they make everyone in Texas look like small-brained, racist idiots-- just like them.

I can't understand how there can be so much hate in the world. I really can't.

[xray s]

Rush would say...

"Just some good ol' boys blowing off some steam, a harmless college type prank"

[movonne]

5. These are truly sick, sick people. How do you think they would act

as soldiers in Iraq.

[Karenina]

23. BINGO!

Ladies and gentleman, we have a winner!

[Harrumph]

7. Why can't they let the poor man rest in peace.

These people are true scum, period.

[buff2]

8. Oh for cripes sakes!!!!

Sounds like the freepers are out loose again. Dammit,why do people have to be so cold hearted? This is outrageous and UNACCEPTABLE. I hope they catch who did this and put them away for about 30 years.

[saigon68]

9. Lynching of an unidentified African American male

Lynching of an unidentified African American male. Date and location unknown.

Printed in lower left corner: "Lynched." Copies of this card turn up frequently, testifying to their popularity.

[tandot]

10. Probably freepers...they couldn't let him rest in peace

How dare they put white, Bush-loving guys in prison for dragging a black person do death?

As we see with so many polls: At least 30% of the population are perverts who would like to preserve the "white race" and agree that conquering Muslim countries and converting them to Christianity is the way to go. Or that affirmative action is discrimination against the white race.

How utterly disgusting. I wish people like this would just drop dead. Sorry...but those people don't even seem like human beings

[DemoTex]

11. East Texas

Don't get caught there with dark skin or NY plates. East Texas was where Ann Richard's campaign team - facing Bu$h's guns 'n gays message - joked about a bumper sticker that said "I'm the Queer Ann Sent to Get Your Gun" (Courtesy of Molly Ivins).

[rppper]

30. jasper and beaumont are in the southeastern portion, near houston...

it is a bit scarey there. i grew up in the northeastern part, near longview and tyler. it was in the woods and rural, but you cant compare the attitudes. locals in the norteastern and southeastern parts will point this out as well. i remember longview/marshall/tyler as being fairly progressive. we elected good senators and reps like lloyd bensten and ralph hall.

[last_texas_dem]

33. One odd thing, though...

I live in Orange (far southeastern corner, couple miles from LA border) and can't disagree with your comment about the attitudes of the people here or vouch for those of the folks in NE Texas, having lived here all my life. If I can say one positive thing about this area, though, it is that we are one of the last Democratic holdouts in the state of Texas. Only Austin and the counties along the Mexican border are as Democratic as southeast Texas. (Our current US Reps are Nick Lampson and Jim Turner, although after redistricting I'm not sure who will remain...) This is probably mostly due to our generally less affluent and more racially mixed population (although the latter is probably the main factor in the more regressive racial attitudes of the whites here).

[rppper]

38. exactly...thats what i'm saying......

max sandlin is the rep from my old district...liberal to the core...railed against the recent medicare bill....NE texas is as diverse a place as anywhere....very relaxed and laid back area. people who have never lived there should take the news with a grain of salt. it isnt a neo-con, nazi skinhead stomping ground like so many here are lead to believe....

hey...i've passed through orange a time or 7...lol....a little more of a metropolis than hallsville, i'll give you that.

[Dr Fate]

12. Bush voters, no doubt. n/t

n/t

[roguevalley]

13. God, this is terrible. Anyone, anywhere dessicrating the dead make me

sick. God bless this family.

[MrSlayer]

14. I guess dragging the guy to death wasn't enough punishment.

For the unforgivable crime of being black not only did Byrd deserve to be tortured to death by dragging, he also needed a posthumous kick that is the desecration of his grave. What the fuck is wrong with people? This beyond sickening. Sometimes I think it would be better for all if we went the way of the dinosaur. Give another species a chance, we've failed our test.

[FlandersFeelds]

17. Why would we all be guilty in your mind?

How can you blame an entire species for the acts of a few?

[Mikimouse]

19. Because we don't collectively take action against pieces of shit...

that do these things. The good ol' boy networkis alive and well and livng in East Texas. I should know, I have lived there most of my life. And, yes, we are a pathetic species; we only get interested in these kinds of thinkgs when they impact us directly, not before.

[flaminbats]

15. only the sickest kind of people could even consider doing this...

they opposed burning flags, claimed to be pro-life, and wished to dismantle welfare so the suffering will get jobs. Then they piss on the graves of others, beat the oppressed and drag the impoverished to their deaths, and laugh at the idea of equality or even public education. No wonder the hottest parts of hell are reserved for the hypocrites!

[Quetzal]

16. Meanwhile, White Power groups are starting to organize

Racist On the Rise

May 10 issue - September 11 wasn't kind to the white-power movement. After the terrorist attacks, several of the nation's largest hate groups lost members and money, and some all but collapsed after bitter internal power struggles. At the same time, many of the movement's high-profile leaders left the scene: Former Klansman David Duke went to prison for tax evasion and mail fraud. William Pierce, head of the National Alliance, the country's largest white nationalist organization, died of cancer. World Church of the Creator head Matthew Hale was arrested in 2002 for plotting to kill a federal judge; he was convicted last week and now faces up to 50 years behind bars.

But in recent months a new leader has given the movement a burst of momentum. Billy Roper, a 32-year-old former schoolteacher from Arkansas, has spent months quietly reaching out to disenfranchised racists and neo-Nazis across the country, uniting them under his new group, White Revolution. "Billy Roper is clearly a rising star among hard-core racists," says Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League.

Soft-spoken and polite to a fault, Roper looks and sounds less like a white supremacist than an avuncular union organizer. In a phone interview he apologizes that allergies have left him with a stuffy nose, and calmly explains how he hopes to end the factional squabbling and focus on their main goal: fighting the influence of Jews, African-Americans and other minorities. "Let's be honest, the Jews have a disproportionate impact in our society," Roper says. "All we're saying is, white people have to fight for their rights, too."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[TexasMexican]

20. East Texas

its practially part of the South.

[callous taoboy]

45. Fact:

East Texas has the highest incidence of incest in the nation.

[Piperay]

21. Very anti-Christian

I hope the people who did that aren't expecting to go to heaven, cause they are headed for hell.

[displacedtexan]

22. Even Lee Harvey Oswald's tombstone was stolen and smashed...

repeatedly.

The families of the famous (Byrd) and the infamous (Oswald)
always have to put up with this disgusting behavior.

Oswald's family finally moved his grave to another part of the cemetery and it now has an unmarked stone:
Rose Hill Cemetery, Arlington, Texas (at the corner of #303 and Rose Hill Avenue).

There are volunteer guards at Edgar Allen Poe's grave (4 blocks from my house) in Baltimore because of the weirdos.

[kskiska]

26. Elvis was buried in a cemetery

but was soon moved to Graceland because of rumors of grave robbers stealing his body.

[NNN0LHI]

24. Why would some one do this? I don't understand these things n/t

[snippy]

25. How very republican.

[RummyTheDummy]

27. What do you expect?

After all, we're talking about Texass here.

[rppper]

29. YOUR idea of texas...be specific

i was fortunate enough to grow up in rural east texas...the northeastern portion of the state around Longview and Tyler. yes, i'll grant you it was in the sticks, but in my 15 years growing up in that area, i can not recall a single incedent of lynching, KKK rallies, skinheads or anything else. it was there, to be sure, but i would guess it was limited to about 5 to 7% of our population. i did not come from some gated community either...Hallsville,Texas...one stoplight...a grocery store, a bank, a dairy queen, 2 gas stations and a nhra dragstrip 6 miles out of town. i attended a 4A school that had one of the largest district areas in texas. if you lived in the woods, you went to HHS. most of the parents i knew would'nt be heard uttering the word "nigger" or "coon" or any other racial epitath. the people i knew would give a stranger the shirt off of their back. we left our doors unlocked. i still see most of the people i grew up with to this very day...they haven't changed. there are some fine liberals on this board from the east texas area. i will always call it home, despite the assholes out there. there is a racist in every area in every state, so don't lump an entire group of people together because of a few bad apples.

[RummyTheDummy]

31. Have you ever read "Friday Night Lights" by H.G. Bissinger

It's an excellent book and speaks to the Texas subculture of racism, bravado and excessive pride bordering on fantaticism.

I've been to almost all of the lower 48. Texas is one of a handful that I found particularly creepy in my 15 or 20 visits. Obviously not all Texans fit this criteria. In fact we have a good number of Texas DU'ers on this board. I've given them a hard time in good fun, but I salute them. They are truly in the belly of the angry white male, conservative beast. Truly brave souls.

[rppper]

34. there are two very different areas of east texas.......

the northern and southern areas. as i said, i grew up in the northern area....a bit more cosmopolitan than the south for sure. most of the people i knew supported ann richards, lloyd bensten and the like. they elected reagan, but also put in democratic senators in the same breath. i have lived in both areas of east texas...the southern region is a scarey place to be if your not WASP, but it represents a fairly small % of the population of texas. while racism certainly exists there, it's percentage is certainly no more than that of any other state. you visited there...i grew up there. most of the institutional racism that existed there, that i recall anyhow, was directed more towards hispanics than blacks.

i will always wonder if what happened in jasper had happened in, lets say, battle creek, michigan, would people lump all michigan natives together?

i understand the chop-busting, btw....i still give my friends from mississippi and west virginia the same one liner..."what's the state color of___________"...answer..."primer grey". no hard feelings here, but it does get a tad loathesome......

[orangeotter]

36. the eyes of Texas are upon you

I have read Friday Night Lights, but again remember that no state or even city is homogeneous. I have lived in California, New Mexico, Louisiana, and for most of the past 10 years about 50 miles south of Jasper. Tons of racism here, as there is in many spots of our nation, but let's not generalize. That's the other people's job. With that said it is fine to joke every now and then. I like to make fun of Texas as much as anyone, but you are most likely right, this event is better associated with a crazy culture that transcends state lines.

[argyl]

32. What state are you from? Your profile makes it obvious you hate Texas

and Texans, why don't you proudly state where you hail from? Could it possibly have flaws of its own? Your thoughts about us are as generalized and steroetypical as any Freeper's are about Arabs.

[RummyTheDummy]

37. Read Post 31

And relaaaaaaaaaaax. I might also remind you the mods frown on accusing other DU members of being Freepers either directly or in your case, indirectly.

[argyl]

40. I don't think you're a Freeper and didn't accuse you of such. I'm just

pointing out a blind spot you have about us.As regional conflicts on DU go,Texas/US is quite mild compared to,say,Israel/Palestine, but it does get old.
If you feel I've violated DU rules hit Alert and let the Mods know.

[callous taoboy]

44. Thanks Argyl:

and Howdy from somewhere in the sticks of Texas, where the redneck population is no bigger or smaller than that of, say, Long Island.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tom_paine]

28. The Freepers/Dittoheads/Brownshirts are stirring

Evil is stirring, restless to "go all the way".

The Freepers/Brownshirts are the midwives to the Incubus of Totalitarian Orwellian Evil.

[Skittles]

35. with Bush Inc hate has become fashionable

the way Reagan made stupidity fashionable.

[saigon68]

39. Today's HATE PICTURE

Portrait of Will James. Circa 1907, Cairo, illinois. ink inscription under oval portrait, "Will James (alias) Froggie."

"Half- Burned Head of James on Pole" in Candee Park. November 11, 1909, Cairo, Illinois. Ink inscription on reverse: "This Pole is in Candee Park. Enter section of Washington avenue and Elm st which have Will James (alia) Froggie half Burnt Head." Etched into negative, "Half Burned Head of James" and photographers name, "leBlock."

[derby378]

41. East Texas

Been there many times since I was a kid. Still a lot of racial enclaving where blacks and whites don't mix with each other much. I can't say it's like that everywhere in East Texas, but I still see it.

There once was a secret Klan training center near Anahuac that Louis Beam ran before moving to Austin.


Want to purchase this bumper sticker? Send me a private message!

[TryingToWarnYou]

42. Maybe we can help?

Does anyone know if the marker has been repaired or not?

Perhaps a Paypal account with some donations can help the family out?

[derby378]

46. That's a great idea! (n/t)