A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption [Hardcover]

Dina Temple-Raston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2002

An extraordinary account of how a small Texas town struggled to come to grips with its racist past in the aftermath of the brutal murder of James Byrd, Jr.

On June 7, 1998, a forty-nine-year-old black man named James Byrd, Jr., was chained to the bumper of a truck and dragged three miles down a country road by a trio of young white men. It didn't take long for the residents of Jasper, Texas, to learn about the murder or to worry that the name of their town would become the nation's shorthand for hate crimes.

From the initial investigation through the trials and their aftermath, A Death in Texas tells the story of the infamous Byrd murder as seen through the eyes of enlightened Sheriff Billy Rowles. What he sees is a community forced to confront not only a grisly crime but also antebellum traditions about race. Drawing on extensive interviews with key players, journalist Dina Temple-Raston introduces a remarkable cast of characters, from the baby-faced killer, Bill King, to Joe Tonahill, Jasper's white patriarch who can't understand the furor over the killing. There's also James Byrd, the hard-drinking victim with his own dark past; the prosecutor and defense attorneys; and Bill King's father, who is dying of a broken heart as he awaits his son's execution.

Just as Bernard Lefkowitz pulled back the curtain on Glenridge, New Jersey, in his classic work Our Guys, Temple-Raston goes behind the scenes in Jasper, Texas, to tell the story of a town where racism and evil made itself at home

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the small town of Jasper, in the piney woods of deep East Texas, old slave relations still live below the surface along with an unwritten code of segregation. It was there that James Byrd was savagely dragged to death by three white men in a pickup. His death threatened to blow the town open. Dina Temple-Raston poignantly captures Jasper's desperate attempt to save its image as Jesse Jackson, the New Black Panthers, the KKK, and the media descended. In the process, she delves into such questions as, What does racism look like and where does it come from; follows the murderers to their final destination at Huntsville prison (ground zero for 40 percent of American executions); and shows how death forces people to see things the way they really are--and just how quickly they forget. A Death in Texas is a stunning and painful book that exposes racism in all its subtle and violent forms, and portrays the small heroes who try to change history. --Lesley Reed

From Publishers Weekly

This perceptive, grimly compelling account of the brutal 1998 murder of James Byrd in Jasper, Tex., is the first book on this nationally reported incident and a fine piece of journalistic reporting, covering the prosecution of Byrd's killers and the social and political aftermath for Jasper. On June 7, 1998, Byrd, a 49-year-old black man, was intentionally dragged behind a truck in such a way that his head and right arm were severed. Three white men were quickly arrested;. two were eventually sentenced to death and one to life imprisonment. Temple-Raston, a former foreign correspondent, uses this basic crime narrative as the backdrop for a complex, multilayered portrait of a small town coming to grips with its own history of racial hatred while simultaneously being thrust into the national limelight. Temple-Raston has a fine eye for detail: she documents how the town's lumber industry had historically abused black labor and mutilated black male bodies. Elsewhere, she presents the father of one of the killers remembering his brother's 1939 trial and acquittal for the murder of a gay man. And she captures the hysteria and fear that grip the town's population in the aftermath: the black community wonders what they might have done to prevent this; a policeman complains that Byrd was "the town drunk." Unsparing in her examination of the race hatred that led to the crime two of the men were members of "Christian Identity" white supremacist groups Temple-Raston is extraordinarily nuanced in exploring how poor, white men (often in prison) are drawn to this horrific ideology. Through a plethora of telling moments here, Temple-Raston painfully explores and exposes the lives of her subjects and the complications of hate and prejudice in the U.S.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (January 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805066527
• ISBN-13: 978-0805066524
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #785,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Destined to become a classic ..., January 6, 2002

By 

Terry Mathews (a small town in east Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption (Hardcover)

The entire nation turned its eyes to Jasper, Texas, during the summer of 1998. James Byrd, Jr.'s horrific death at the hands of three white supremacist shocked us all. How could this happen in 1998, we asked ourselves? How could we live in a society where one is beaten, has his face spray painted black, and his dragged to his death behind the back of a pickup truck just because of the color of his skin?

Reporter Dina Temple-Raston has just written what I believe will become the definitive book on Byrd's murder and its aftermath. I'm not sure how an attractive woman reporter from the northeast, with no obvious ties to east Texas was able to capture the essence of our lives, but she did. And she did it brilliantly...with a few exceptions.

I have some problems with her geography and basic facts that a good editor should have caught: Houston is NOT the capitol of Texas (p. 39); Sulphur Springs is NOT in central Texas (p. 71)...it's in north east Texas between Dallas and Texarkana; it's located in HOPKINS county, not Delta County (p. 137); and Vidor is SOUTHWEST of Jasper, not northwest (p. 142). These errors will cost the author some credibility, but they don't take away from the essence of the story: Despite the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, we have not put our racist past behind us.

We are lucky that Temple-Raston chose to pay more attention to her subject matter and to handle the characters swirling around in the plot with much more care than she paid to her geography. She details the lives of the three killers: Bill King; Russell Brewer; and Shawn Berry with great care. She is honest in her depiction of James Byrd, Jr. as an alcoholic who couldn't keep a job, drove his wife and children away, and even borrowed money from the preacher's elderly mother.

Temple-Raston saves her best writing, however, for Sheriff Billy Rowles. By all accounts, Rowles is the main reason Byrd's death did not rip the town of Jasper clean in two. Rowles pulled Jasper's leaders together and kept order as best he could. With much insight and greater human instinct than most law enforcement officers possess, Rowles used Great New Bethel Baptist Church preacher Kenneth Lyons, Deep East Texas Council of Governments Director Walter Diggles, Jasper Police Chief Harlon Alexander and Jasper County District Attorney Guy James Gray to keep the peace.

I read this book in one sitting. Being from east Texas and living through the segregated 50's and 60's, I am saddened that we're still fighting these racial battles today. I am heartened, however, because in the 50's and 60's, this story would have never been told outside Jasper county and the killers would have not faced the death penalty. At least, now the stories are being told and light is being shed on one of America's most difficult issues.

This book will be a best seller in Texas, guaranteed. It should be required reading for anyone involved in law enforcement and it should be mandatory for anyone who denies the problem of racism in our country.

Kudos to Temple-Raston. This is one of the year's best reads.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Piece of Work, January 15, 2002

By 

"mwatson88" (Georgetown, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption (Hardcover)

I typically would not write a review, but having grown up in Jasper I felt compelled to applaud the author for this book. Temple-Raston does an excellent job of capturing the underlying attitudes and perceptions that many people felt following this crime. She captures information from all sides, giving a true picture. History and other events are intertwined with the main storyline in just the right mixture, providing the reader the necessary background.

The only thing that may detract from the credibility of the story was some obvious mistakes in geographical references. The author and editors should have caught many of these. But these will go unnoticed by readers not familiar with the area.

Overall, Temple-Raston has taken this nationally covered event and presented it in a manner allowing everyone to understand the struggles that still exist today.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Enjoyable, January 15, 2002

By 

Nick Kasoff (ST. LOUIS, MO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption (Hardcover)

After the sensational news reports and the inflammatory speeches by those with no personal stake in Jasper have faded into the nearly forgotten past, this book provides a balanced and comprehensive review of the people, places, and events which put Jasper on the map. It was a quick and compelling read, the sort of book which will keep you up past your bedtime. But you come away from it feeling that you know and understand what happened in Jasper, something which the evening newscasts did not accomplish.