James Byrd's Racial Controversy

When you look at me what do you see? To society, I’m a black female who fits the stereotypical “wanna-be” black female wanting to have white hair textures. They watch carefully as I walk past them; afraid of my “black girl capabilities” solely based off of stereotypes that have been carelessly passed down from generation to generation. They think, “She’s probably unhappy with her dark complexion”. They wonder, “Why does she look so angry, it’s probably just another angry black woman.”

Though another standpoint is Bailey’s, who didn’t consider the actions of the KKK to allow them to be called heroes or terrorists. He didn’t talk about all the lynching’s made famous by the KKK, but called their activities “tomfoolery”. (15) Finally, Norton goes into detail by saying that the leaders of the KKK “allowed factionalism along racial and class lines to undermine party unity.” (19) Norton describes more about the main reason as to why the KKK was created and the purpose of existing, which was to terrorize the freed slaves and to make the south the way it was before the

Over the last 500 years people of color, especially African American, have endured a pattern of state-sanctioned violence, civil and human rights abuse. To enforce capitalist exploitation and racial oppression the government and its police, courts, prisons, and military have beaten, framed, murdered, and executed private persons, while brutally repressing struggles for freedom, justice, and self-determination” (Fitzgerald, 2007). More often than not, police brutality has been a persistent problem faced by African Americans. “Historically, racist violence has been used to impose racial oppression and preserve white power and privilege. Racist violence has served five primary purposes: to force people of color into indentured, slave, peonage, or low wage situations; to steal land, minerals, and other resources; to maintain social control and to repress rebellions; to restrict or eliminate competition in employment, business, politics, and social life; and to unite “whites” across ethnic/national, class, and gender lines” (Fitzgerald, 2007).

Terror groups rose up to assure white supremacy in the South. African Americans could never win, especially when the Ku Klux Klan always forced them into debt. Although government awareness was brought up when they interviewed Henry Blake in Document 5, nothing could be done to stop the terrorizing feelings of individuals who fail to see that people of color are human as much as someone white is. African Americans worked to get the rights they deserved so of course they would be proud of what they accomplished. Document 4 is an account of Lucy McMillan, an African American, who had her house burned down by the Ku Klux Klan for “bragging” about her land owning rights.

Examining the specific case of Maria Carter, and the violence she experienced with the Ku Klux Klan, gave more justification towards the need of a government-issued change that the Klan, and other hate groups, would not like to disobey. Carter witnessed one of the most violent instances with the Klan, in which she testified that “they struck her [neighbor] over the head with a pistol. The house looked next morning as if somebody had been killing hogs there. Some of them said ‘Fetch a light here, quick;’ and some of them said to her, ‘Hold a light.’ They said she held it, and they put their guns down on him and shot him” (United States, “Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee”).

The killing of the one white man was made into a justification for the beginning of an indiscriminant killed of Native Americans. The governor of Virginia, Berkeley, wanted

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.

The killings of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and a plethora of other Black Americans have shown that the manifestation of hate and fear towards individuals of color is still deeply rooted in the American culture. Furthermore, the systematic maltreatment of groups of people in America has extended far beyond just the black community; it has become painfully clear that members of the LGBTQ, Latinx, and Islamic communities are facing a similar level of

“‘Lynchings were violent and public acts of torture that traumatized black people throughout the country and were largely tolerated by state and federal officials’” (Berman). Almost four thousand black people were killed between 1877 and 1950

Racism and racial inequality was extremely prevalent in America during the 1950’s and 1960’s. James Baldwin shows how racism can poison and make a person bitter in his essay “Notes of a Native Son”. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “A Letter from Birmingham Jail” also exposes the negative effects of racism, but he also writes about how to combat racism. Both texts show that the violence and hatred caused from racism form a cycle that never ends because hatred and violence keeps being fed into it. The actions of the characters in “Notes of a Native Son” can be explain by “A Letter from Birmingham Jail”, and when the two texts are paired together the racism that is shown in James Baldwin’s essay can be solved by the plan Dr. King proposes in his

The article “The Murder of James Byrd, Jr.,” was about an African American man who was murdered. James Byrd, Jr. was murdered by 3 white men. Byrd was chained to the back of a truck and dragged over an asphalt road for several miles leaving him decapitated and resulting in his death. This is a very eye opening and must-read article about turning a bad situation into a cause worth fighting for. “President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.

Jesse James was a well known gang leader, bank robber, and train robber. He was a member of the notorious gang named the James-Younger gang. Jesse James was born on September 5, 1847 in Clay County, Missouri. Jesse and his older brother Frank lost their father in 1849. The father, Reverend Robert James, abandoned his family and disappeared and was thought to go to the California gold fields.

Nearly a century after the abolition of slavery in America, the discrimination and prejudice behavior conducted by caucasians was still prevalent in the lives of African Americans. Certain racial laws that contradicted the human rights set in the Constitution prohibited blacks from living regular lives along-side white Americans. Several iconic individuals within the black community, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, have left behind legacies and ideologies that have impacted and still strongly influence African American culture tremendously. Martin Luther King Jr’s less violent and peaceful approach along with Malcolm X’s affirmative action behavior, shaped the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement that eventually

Racial terror is the practice of social control through violence, and the threat of death. It is often exercised against black men through unlawful mob violence and lynching .In which it is exercise against black men through unlawful mob violence and lynching. Black men are forced to feel the pull of historical racial terror and the unannounced terror of today’s society. Blacks can feel the racial terror with unwarranted Black Death at the hands of the state, and displays of violence directed against defenseless bodies.

The discussion of hate crime has been very delicate over the past few months, from ISIS to police brutality. In this paper situations involving hate crime will be discussed such as the background; history of hate crime like the holocaust; special groups and genders that get “hated” on such as blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, and Jews; examples of hate crime; prominent figures like Donald Trump and his anti- Muslim and anti-immigrant policies as well as news pieces of hate crime; groups for and against other races like the black lives matter movement; statistics of hate crime and hate groups in the U.S.; the argument that