A Life Marked by Troubles, but Not by Hatred
But somewhere in his 81-year-old imagination, Mr. Thomas -- known as Pete
in the quietly disheveled, mostly black neighborhood of East Jasper -- still
held out hope that Mr. Byrd would somehow walk up to his porch, as he did
every morning, with a friendly word and a few sausages or a cardboard box of
dominoes.
James Byrd, who was 49, never seemed to have made full use of a broad
intelligence and a renowned musical ability, relatives and neighbors said.
But those who knew him described something solid within him, a reliability
that drove him to take care of Mr. Thomas, an elderly neighbor he had known
since boyhood, and a deep affection for the three children of his failed
marriage.
For all of his personal problems -- alcoholism, petty thievery, an
inability to hold a job -- he was well liked and had apparently never been
involved in any kind of racial incident. Family members, gathered from
across Texas for the funeral on Saturday, said they could not fathom the
kind of random racial hatred that the authorities say led three white men to
drag him by his ankles from a pickup truck early Sunday morning, tearing his
body to pieces.
''We told the children that this was just an isolated act of people who
were sick and twisted,'' said Clara Taylor, one of Mr. Byrd's sisters,
standing on the front lawn of the brown wooden house where they both grew up
and where Mr. Byrd's parents still live. ''To do this, you have to believe
that someone is just not worth living to begin with. It had nothing to do
with him. It could have been anyone walking down the street. If they were
black, that is.''
Mr. Byrd's high school class of 1967 was the last segregated class in
this East Texas town of 8,000, but even before full integration began,
neither Mr. Byrd nor most other residents had any significant run-ins with
white residents, neighbors and relatives said. Mr. Byrd often sold vacuum
cleaners to make money, said another sister, Mary Verrett, and had success
with both white and black customers. He would often be seen walking the
streets of town, accepting rides from friends or acquaintances, and never
with any consequences.
''The kind of racial problems we had here were the kinds of things where
you wouldn't get the promotion or the right jobs,'' Mrs. Verrett said. ''In
all the time I grew up, there was never any outright bigotry, and none of us
were afraid to walk the street. In fact, you could say we were pretty
happy.''
Mr. Byrd was the third of eight children of Stella Byrd, a Sunday school
teacher, and James Byrd Sr., a dry cleaner. The family's life revolved
around Greater New Bethel Baptist Church, a few blocks from their home,
where Mrs. Byrd taught and her husband was a deacon.
''When the church doors opened on Sunday, we were there,'' said Mrs.
Taylor, 50, who teaches eighth-grade science in the Houston public schools.
''There was school in the morning, then services, then Baptist Training
Union, then church again at night. You knew what you'd be doing on
Sundays.''
As a boy, Mr. Byrd was known in church more for the passion of his piano
playing and singing than his faith. He could pick out any tune on the
keyboard before he was 10, and was particularly adept at belting out
spirituals and hymns, especially ''Walk With Me, Lord,'' and more recently
the pop hit ''I Believe I Can Fly.'' He was the lead trumpeter in the band
at Rowe Elementary School, and also did a more-than-passable imitation of Al
Green.
But despite an excellent academic record at Jasper High School, he
decided not to follow his two sisters into college, even though he was
encouraged to do so by his parents. His friends and relatives speak vaguely
and sadly of an aimless, drifting element to his life, an unwillingness to
commit himself to a career or a passion.
''He was so very intelligent, and as his family we always regretted that
he never used his intellectual potential to the highest capacity,'' said
Mrs. Verrett, 47, a medical transcriptionist who lives in Houston. ''He
wasn't the type of person who liked a 9-to-5 job. He would get in a rut, and
then his personal difficulties would begin.''
The drinking started in high school, friends say, and was exacerbated by
medical problems like arthritis. (He had also injured his foot in a bicycle
accident in his youth, leading to his neighborhood nickname, Toe.) At some
point, said the Rev. Kenneth O. Lyons, pastor of Greater New Bethel and a
boyhood friend, Mr. Byrd lost his religious faith.
''I used to remind him that he was brought up in a Christian home, and
that one day something like this could happen, and he would need an eternal
life,'' Mr. Lyons said today, after a condolence call on the family. ''But,
James, he would challenge me. He would say, if he came, he would have to be
right, completely right, and he would have to be sincere. I would say, 'No
one's perfect, James.' And he would just look at me with that old look of
his.''
Mr. Byrd married a few years out of high school and stayed with his wife,
on and off, for about 23 years, fathering three children: Renee Mullins, 27,
who until recently served in the Army; Ross, 20, an Army private stationed
at Fort Benning, Ga., who is scheduled to serve in South Korea in a few
months, and Jamie, 16, who lives with her mother in Lufkin, Tex., about 50
miles away.
The marriage broke up in 1993, three years after Mr. Byrd was convicted
of theft and sentenced to seven years in prison. He was paroled a few years
later but sent back to prison for a violation, returning to Jasper in 1996.
At that point, things seemed to begin to improve. Mr. Byrd entered
Alcoholics Anonymous and began coming back to the church, Mr. Lyons said.
Using his disability money, Mr. Byrd got his own one-bedroom apartment in
a housing project in Jasper, and his sisters came over to help decorate.
''He told me not to sit on the roll-away bed, because his son was coming
to see him and would be sleeping there,'' said Mrs. Verrett, who had
recently bought him a dinette set she was planning to give him. ''He was so
proud of his children and wanted to protect them. He always told his
daughters it was a jungle out there.''
But he never seemed to view his hometown that way. Many people in Jasper
who did not know Mr. Byrd -- hundreds of whom were wearing yellow ribbons on
their shirts on Thursday -- remembered seeing him meander through town,
never putting together enough disability money to buy a used car, perfectly
happy to walk if a friend did not pass by offering a ride.
No one knows why he would have got in that pickup truck on Sunday while
walking home from a friend's house, although the police have theorized that
he knew one of the three men accused of killing him because they had the
same parole officer.
Just a few hours earlier, Mr. Byrd had stopped by to cut Mr. Thomas's
yard and to see two of his children at a bridal shower for a niece at his
parents' house. It was the last time he was seen by anyone who loved him,
the last time the neighborhood was intact.
Helicopters now hover over East Jasper, television satellite trucks
rumble over the rutted roads of the neighborhood, and when the phone rings,
it is as likely to be the President of the United States as a weeping
friend. Mrs. Taylor said President Clinton, who called her mother on
Thursday, offered his deep sympathies and promised to see that justice was
done in the case.
''We don't use the word 'hate' in our family,'' Mrs. Taylor said, when
asked about the three men charged in the case. ''But those boys didn't get
the way they were overnight.
''The only thing you can do is hope that all of this makes parents think
about the moral values they're teaching their children. The way our parents
taught us.''
''When he didn't come over Sunday, I knew that he was gone, not
coming back,'' Mr. Thomas, a retired sawmill hand, said as a rooster
strutted about the dirt lawn and an old dog scratched. ''He had cut my lawn
the day before, and he was supposed to take me to church. He had his
problems, but he never forgot.''
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