| There are some murders that are hard to forget. James Byrd's is one of them. In this story, Race and Ethnicity reporter Emmanuel Felton explored how the small East Texas town of Jasper is trying. Here's an excerpt of his story: JASPER, Tex. — On a June evening in 1998, three White men chained a Black man by his ankles to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him for several miles down a twisting country road in this small East Texas town, decapitating him in the process. The next day, pieces of James Byrd's body were found all along the route. What happened next — a deluge of national media attention and the passage of federal and state hate-crimes legislation named after Byrd — cemented Jasper's place in America's long history of racial terror against Black people. Under pressure to prove their town was no bastion of hate, White residents invited Black neighbors over for meals for months and pledged to close the town's gaping racial divide. The city's mayor at the time, R.C. Horn, the first Black person to hold the position, convened nearly two dozen town hall meetings and workshops to discuss racism and how to address it. But now, 25 years later, the horrific attack that once galvanized this community is barely discussed. Byrd is not mentioned in the local school district's Texas history textbooks and he's absent from the Jasper County Historical Museum, which opened in 2008. His family says their efforts to keep Byrd's memory alive, including a push to open a museum in his honor, have largely been met with lackluster support from local officials. Few people showed up at a Juneteenth event they held this year to acknowledge the anniversary of Byrd's murder. "They just want to forget what happened in Jasper," said LouVon Byrd Harris, Byrd's younger sister. "You know who people really are once the cameras are gone. And once the cameras were gone, people started saying, 'Poor Jasper, we're victims, too.'"  (Callaghan O'Hare/For The Washington Post) Twenty-five years after a Black man, James Byrd, was killed by three White men in this East Texas town, many in Jasper are ready to forget. By Emmanuel Felton ● Read more » | | | Is there value in remembering these parts of America's history. Share your thoughts at aboutus@washpost.com. About Us will not publish on Tuesday, Sept. 5, due to the Labor Day holiday. |
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