He was born on May 2nd, 1949 and died on June 7th, 1998, being the third of 8 kids born to Stella and James Byrd Sr. He graduated in the last racially segregated class at Jasper’s Rowe High School in 1967. He had an excellent academic record and a father to 3 children. He spent a few years in prison for petty theft, struggled with alcoholism, and worked sporadically as a vacuum salesman. In 1996, he returned to Jasper and set to improve his life by entering Alcoholics Anonymous. Byrd was described by friends and family as an “friendly father and grandfather who was charismatic, musically talented and generally well liked.” On June 7th, 1998, Byrd was killed by three “drunk” white men; Lawrence Russell Brewer, Shawn Allen Berry, and John William King; making it his last day alive. What started as a harmless offer for a ride …show more content…
In Jasper, it is not uncommon for people to walk home. Nor was it uncommon for people to get offered a ride home. So Byrd’s parents thought nothing of it when, in the early hours of June 7th, 1998, Byrd set home on foot. James thought nothing of it when Brewer( 31), Berry( 24), and King( 23) offered him a ride home; Byrd simply nodded and got into the bed of the pickup truck they were driving. Instead of taking him home, they took him to a desolate area. Here Brewer, Berry, and King beat Byrd severely, urinated and defecated on him, spray painted him black, ( according to Brewer), and chained him by his ankles to their pickup truck before dragging him for more than three miles along an asphalt road. Byrd manage to remain conscious throughout the dragging and even managed to keep his head up for a while during the incident. Byrd was succumbed to the dragging when his right arm and head were severed after hitting the edge of a sewage drain
Dudley Randall was born on January 19, 1914 in Washington D.C. and died on August 2, 2000 in Southfield, Michigan. His mother Ada Viloa was a teacher and his father Arthur George Clyde Randall was a Congregational minister. His father was very much into politics because of that Dudley and his brother would listen to prominent black speakers. When Randall was about nine years old he and his family move to Detroit, Michigan in 1920. By the time he was thirteen he had his first poem published in the Detroit Free Press. At the age of sixteen he had graduated from high school.
In June of 1998, a sadistic murder of a middle-aged black man from Jasper, Texas, rekindled memories of lynching practices from the blood stained American past. James Byrd, Jr., 49, was beaten savagely to the point of unconsciousness, chained to the back of a pickup truck by his neck, and dragged for miles over rural roads outside the town of Jasper. It is believed that Byrd survived through most of this experience, that is, until he was decapitated. Three white men, John William King, 23, Shawn Berry, 23, (both of whom had links to white supremacist groups) and Lawrence Brewer Jr., 31, were arrested. Brewer and King were sentenced to death for a racial hate crime that shocked the nation. Berry was sent to prison for life.
James Lafayette Dickey, III was born in the town of Atlanta, Georgia on February 2, 1923. His parents were Maibelle and Eugene Dickey. He went to Ed S. Cook Elementary School and North Fulton High School as a kid, both of which are in Atlanta. He was athletic as a child. He played football and track, but his football career led him to a scholarship at the University of Clemson, in Clemson, South Carolina. But, before he went off to college he spent one year at the Darlington School in Rome, Georgia for one year in preparation for a college. He didn’t last longer than a year in Clemson though because he enlisted into the Army Air Corps.
He reached a small convenience store on the road, where the owners would not let him in until he begged them. As he walked on, a young black male offered him a ride and a place to sleep in his house with his wife and six children. Later that evening, Griffin had a reoccurring nightmare about white men and women, with their faces of heartlessness staring at him. As Griffin was about to leave, he tried to give money to the family for his gratitude, but they would not accept it, so he just left the money there. Griffin then hitchhiked to a small bus station and bought a ticket to Montgomery.
He was born on February 6, 1895 to his parents Katherine Schamberger and George Herman Ruth Sr. in Baltimore, Maryland.
Nathan Hale was born on June sixth, 1755, in Coventry, Connecticut. Richard Hale and Elizabeth Hale were his parents. Nathan had nine siblings. Enoch Hale was the most acknowledged sibling of Nathan Hale. Education was important to both of them. In addition to learning, Nathan was interested in wrestling, football, broad jumping, and women. Resources state that he was “the idol of all his acquaintances”, which was the reason for everyone’s admiration for him. This was one important part of Hale’s remembrance.
He was standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis Which is where he had made a trip to help a sanitation laborers' strike. In the wake of his passing, a rush of mobs cleared significant urban areas the nation over, while President Johnson announced a national day of grieving. James Earl Ray, a got away convict and known bigot, conceded to the murder and was condemned to 99 years in jail.
Robert E. Lee was a general during the civil war and was born in Stratford, Virginia in 1807. His father was a revolutionary war general Henry Lee. He graduated from the military academy at west point in 1829. He ranked second in his class. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in engineers. He became war general for the confederate army in 1861.
Bob Hope was born May 29, 1903 in London England, UK. Hope left school when he was nine so he could start and make a living. He had six brothers, and was married to Grace Louis Troxell in 1933-1934. Then he married Dolores Hope in 1934-2003, until his death. Before Hope’s death, they adopted four children. He was an actor, comedian, author, and an athlete. His parents were William Henry Hope who was a Stone man, and his mother Avis Townes who was an opera singer then became a cleaning woman. When world war two began during 1939. Hope would go sing to the troops to lighten their spirits, and make them feel good. Bob Hope died of Pneumonia in July 27, 2003 in Los Angeles, California when he was 100 years old! Bob Hope was a great american to many people, and for many reasons. During this essay you will see why Bob Hope is a great american.
...Unfortunately for Byrd and others his wife did not make it long enough to see that day because she died on March 25, 2006 from “a protracted illness.”
Mr. Griffin was a middle age white man who lived with his wife and children. He was not oriented to his family. He decided to pass his own society to the black society. Although this decision might help most of the African Americans, he had to sacrifice his gathering time with his family. “She offered, as her part of the project, her willingness to lead, with our three children, the unsatisfactory family life of a household deprived of husband and father” (Griffin 9). Leaving Mrs. Griffin and his children would deprive them of the care they needed. Even though he was not oriented to his family, he was full of courage. He was willing to discuss topics that people hesitated to talk about, trying new ideas that people were afraid to do. After turning back to his own skin color, he attended most media conferences and also wrote books about what he had gone through. During those interviews, Griffin was very considerate. He requested Wallace, a reporter, to report carefully so that he would not hurt his African American friends. “Please… Don’t mention those names on the air.
In the late 1900s, racial tension was considered by society, to be non-existent until James Byrd Jr. was murdered. In 1998, James Byrd Jr, an African American male age of 49 was kidnapped. Byrd was not kidnapped for ransom but for an outcome of death. After leaving a family gathering Byrd was manipulated into getting a ride home from three white men. The three men included John King, Shawn Berry, and Lawrence Brewer, whom “…established ties to racist organizations during previous prison terms.”(Brookfield). The men took an unexpected turn into the deserted country and began the torturing of James Byrd Junior. The men started to severely beat him, and then chained him by his ankles to the back of their pick-up truck. The three men than drove off and dragged him while conscious for three and a half miles. “The driver swerved from side to side to bounce Byrd across the road, the asphalt tore away parts of his body.”(Miller) and when slammed into a channel Byrd was beheaded. The three killers took what was left of him, threw his torso in front of a church and left.
On May 30, 1997, a jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts of murder including capital murder, kidnapping, and aggravated sexual assault and sentenced Jesse Timmendequas to death.
Before anyone changes the world they must be born, so as many before him Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on September 4, 1908 near Natchez, Mississippi. Richard Wright was the grandson of four slaves and the son of a sharecropper in fact he was born on aon a Mississippi plantation. He was mostly raised by his mother. Wrights father had left around five years after he was born. He was shuttled to different family homes in Mississippi and Arkansas before moving to Memphis. In Memphis there was rarely enough food in the house. So at six he became a drunkard. And from a very early age he was abused mentally and physically by racist employers. In his book , Black Boy, Wright described those early years as “dark and lonely as death,” causing him to reflect as follows about black life in A...
He was born on April 13th 1939 and was the eldest of nine children to