[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 50 (Tuesday, April 13, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E633-E634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            EXPOSING RACISM

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 13, 1999

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in my continuing efforts to 
document and expose racism in America, I submit the following articles 
into the Congressional Record.

 Prosecutor: Black Man's Murder Intended to Draw Attention to New Hate 
                                 Group

                          (By Michael Graczyk)

       Jasper, TX (AP).--The heinous dragging death of a black man 
     last year was part of a plan to draw attention to a new white 
     supremacist group being organized by his accused white 
     killer, John William King, prosecutors say.
       ``I do believe he was trying to form his own personal hate 
     group in Jasper, Texas,'' Jasper County District Attorney Guy 
     James Gray said Tuesday after the first full day of 
     testimony. ``I believe we'll be able to establish that this 
     killing was to promote his own personal agenda.''
       King, 24, an unemployed laborer and ex-convict, faces life 
     in prison or death by injection if convicted of the June 7 
     murder of James Byrd Jr.
       The 49-year-old East Texas man was chained to the back of a 
     pickup truck and dragged for three miles before his body, 
     minus a head, neck and arm, was left dumped on a road across 
     from a black church and cemetery.
       Gray, who said DNA evidence would be introduced today, has 
     said he hopes to wrap up his side of the case by the end of 
     the week.
       Two other men, Lawrence Russell Brewer, 31, and Shawn Allen 
     Berry, 23, are to be tried later on the same charges.
       In his opening statement Tuesday to the jury of 11 whites 
     and one black, Gray said physical evidence, racist tattoos 
     all over King's body and letters written by King would tie 
     him to Byrd's murder.
       Correspondence seized by authorities from King's Jasper 
     apartment the day after Byrd's death and entered into 
     evidence late Tuesday included 22 pages of handwritten by-
     laws and a code of ethics for what King called the 
     ``Confederate Knights of America Texas Rebel Soldiers.''
       ``Dear Student,'' King wrote. ``Welcome to the Aryan 
     Institute for Higher Learning . . . Welcome to the dream.''
       In one of the documents, he labels himself ``Captain'' of 
     the organization. In another, where he signs himself as 
     ``President,'' he describes his group as working for the 
     ``struggle of our white race'' and complained of ``thousands 
     of organizations working for the interest of minorities.''
       ``How many groups stand up for the cultural values and 
     ideals of the white majority?'' he asked. ``We of the 
     Confederate Knights of America are unapologetically committed 
     to the interest, ideas and cultural value of the White Aryan 
     race.''
       Prosecutors said other physical evidence includes a lighter 
     engraved with Knight's prison nickname ``Possum'' and a Klu 
     Klux Klan symbol of interlocking three K's found along the 
     bloody route. Byrd's blood also was found on King's shoes, 
     Gray said.
       Tattoos over more than 65 percent of his body include a 
     black man hanging from a tree, nazi swastikas and a Woody 
     Woodpecker cartoon character wearing a Klan robe and hood.
       Defense attorney Haden ``Sonny'' Cribbs, who declined an 
     immediate opening statment, objected to the introduction of 
     the written material and photos of King's tattoos, saying 
     such items were protected by the Constitution as freedom of 
     expression. State District Judge Joe Bob Golden overruled the 
     objections.
       Prosecutors began testimony by laying out the crime scene, 
     with Sheriff Billy Rowles telling how he first thought he had 
     a routine hit-and-run accident. But he said he was puzzled by 
     the lack of parallel tire tracks that should have followed 
     the trail of blood typically left by someone dragged under a 
     vehicle.
       When investigators found the lighter, ``That's when we 
     started having some bad thoughts,'' the sheriff added. ``I 
     knew somebody had been murdered because he had been black.''
       Other items from the crime scene included tools with the 
     name ``Berry'' scratched into the surface. Authorities knew 
     Berry was a mechanic and arrested him on outstanding traffic 
     warrants. When he gave an affidavit that included information 
     identifying King as having the nickname ``Possum,'' ``I know 
     this country boy's in trouble,'' Rowles testified.
       In love letters he sent from prison to Michele Chapman, a 
     Jasper woman described by King as ``my precious Aryan 
     Princess,'' King used obscenities and vulgarities when 
     referring to blacks and Mexicans. He bragged about what he 
     said was $3,000 worth of tattoo work he received for free all 
     over his body from an inmate tattoo artist.
       ``White is right!!!'' he wrote in one letter, signing it 
     off: ``. . . Take care and stay white and beautiful.''
       Prosecutors also showed jurors photographs of Byrd's 
     remains and introduced into evidence tattered remnants of 
     Byrd's clothing. Several members of Byrd's family began 
     sobbing as the clothing was revealed.


     
                                  ____
     Black Marine Beaten, Paralyzed by White Men to Face Attackers

                         (By Michelle Williams)

       San Diego (AP)--Sitting in a wheelchair with only the 
     slightest movement in his left hand, Lance Cpl. Carlos 
     Colbert still has his voice to describe how five men savagely 
     changed his life at a Memorial Day party.
       The black Marine, who is paralyzed, today was to face the 
     white men who drunkenly beat him, broke his neck and left him 
     motionless on the ground in what prosecutors say was a racist 
     attack.
       Colbert was to tell them how his life has changed. He is 
     21. Jessee Lawson, 20; Trenton Solis, 18; Robert Rio, 23; Jed 
     Jones, 21; and Steven Newark III, 18, pleaded guilty last 
     month to felony assault and avoided potential life sentences 
     at today's hearing.
       Prosecutor Craig Rooten said Tuesday that Colbert wanted 
     the case to go to trial, but understood the guilty pleas 
     ensured jail time for his attackers.
       ``There were a lot of people involved and there was a lot 
     of alcohol involved, making it a difficult case to sort 
     out,'' Rooten said.
       Colbert, of Forestville, MD, was one of just a few blacks 
     who attended a party last May at the home of Tim Bullard, a 
     fellow Camp Pendleton Marine. At least 100 people packed the 
     small house at Santee, a rural community 20 miles northeast 
     of San Diego.
       When a fight broke out in the front yard, there were no 
     streetlights to illuminate what was happening and most of the 
     people were drunk, Rooten said. Police interviewed about 50 
     people over four months before making any arrests since few 
     stories were alike.
       One common denominator was that the attackers punched and 
     kicked Colbert while shouting racial slurs and ``white 
     power,'' Rooten said.
       Colbert's memory of the attack was that a fellow Marine 
     went outside to help a woman who was hit by a ``skinhead.'' 
     When he heard the commotion, he went outside to see what was 
     happening.
       ``Out of the corner of my eye I saw a guy coming toward me 
     with brass knuckles,'' Colbert told The San Diego Union-
     Tribune. ``I felt it on my neck. . . . He came up behind me 
     and broke my neck. I fell flat on my face.''
       At a hearing last month, Judge Frederick Link asked Lawson 
     if he beat Colbert because he was black and he tearfully 
     said: ``That is correct.''
       Lawson's admission means he faces two to 11 years in 
     prison. The others face five years probation with one year in 
     jail. They will receive credit for jail time already served. 
     Solis has been free on $250,000 bond for a few months, but 
     the others have been jailed since their arrest in September.
       The parents of some of the attackers recently went on a 
     radio talk show, saying their sons were coerced into 
     confessing that the crime was racially motivated, and it 
     really was just a drunk brawl. A witness called in to say 
     that such hatred isn't created by alcohol, it only enhances 
     it.
       Colbert spent several months at a Veteran's Administration 
     hospital in Long Beach before moving to a Virginia hospital 
     closer to his family's Maryland home. He was recently moved 
     to a home modified for his wheelchair, Rooten said.


     
                                  ____
      Settlement Reached in California Race-Based Admissions Case

                            (By Bob Egelko)

       San Francisco (AP)--City schools and the NAACP reached a 
     last-minute settlement over race-based admissions on the same 
     day a federal trial was to begin deciding the 
     constitutionality of San Francisco's school desegregation 
     program.
       The program bars any school from having more than 45 
     percent of any one racial or ethnic group, a practice the 
     families of three Chinese-American students alleged kept the 
     youngsters out of their preferred schools.
       U.S. District Judge William Orrick ordered details of 
     Tuesday's agreement between the school district and the 
     National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 
     kept confidential until a hearing today.
       But participant's comments indicated that court-ordered 
     limits on racial and ethnic groups at each school in the 
     63,000-student district would be repealed.
       Daniel Girard, lawyer for the three Chinese-American 
     students and their parents, who filed the lawsuit in 1994, 
     said the agreement is ``a balanced resolution'' that achieves 
     the plaintiffs' objectives.

[[Page E634]]

       ``This is definitely worth the fight,'' said Charlene Loen, 
     whose 14-year-old son, Patrick Wong, was denied admission to 
     elite Lowell High School in 1994 because the school then 
     required higher test scorers from Chinese American than other 
     ethnic groups.
       That policy has been changed, but the court order still has 
     the effect of curbing Lowell's Chinese-American enrollment, 
     the largest of any group. Wong, 18, now attends the 
     University of California, Irvine.
       The 1993 order, which resolved a 1978 discrimination suit 
     by the NAACP contained a 45 percent ceiling on any racial or 
     ethnic group at a school. The limit is 40 percent at 
     alternative or ``magnet'' schools. Those include Lowell, 
     which has an entrance exam and counts U.S. Supreme Court 
     Justice Stephen Breyer and the late Gov. Pat Brown among its 
     alumni.
       A draft settlement would prohibit assigning students abased 
     on race or ethnicity but would let the district consider 
     their socioeconomic status, and Patrick Manshardt, a lawyer 
     for the state of Board of Education who saw the draft but was 
     not part of the negotiations.
       The settlement comes at a time of increasing judicial 
     hostility to race-based admissions. In November, a federal 
     appeals court struck down race as an admissions factor at the 
     prestigious Boston Latin School, a ruling the school board 
     decided not to appeal.
       The San Francisco settlement will not end desegregation 
     efforts, insisted NAACP lawyer Peter Cohn. He said the 
     agreement would ``continue to protect the educational rights 
     of all children.''


     
                                  ____
                [From the USA Today, February 23, 1999]

                 New Avenues Aiding Hate Group Numbers

                           (By Laura Parker)

       The number of hate groups operating in the United States 
     increased again last year, spurred by the Internet, white 
     power rock-'n'-roll music and the efforts of fringe groups to 
     attract mainstream followers, according to a report by the 
     Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.
       For the first time, the Council of Conservative Citizens, 
     which has drawn Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Rep. 
     Bob Barr, R-Ga., as speakers at meetings, was listed as a 
     hate group in the law center's annual survey of hate and 
     paramilitary groups.
       The report, to be issued Tuesday, says there were 537 hate 
     groups operating in 1998, up from 474 groups in 1997. That 
     includes the 33 chapters of the Council of Conservative 
     Citizens, which claims 15,000 dues-paying members.
       The council was listed as hate group after the law center 
     published an expose about the group last year. The CCC, 
     according to the law center, has its roots in the old White 
     Citizens Councils, organized to combat the 1954 Supreme Court 
     ruling outlawing ``separate but equal'' schools. The 
     organization has pushed national issues such as opposition to 
     affirmative action, immigration and school busing.
       ``But its chief interest remains race,'' the center says in 
     its report.
       When the involvement of Lott and Barr became public last 
     year, both men disavowed the council's views.
       The number Ku Klux Klan organizations is also up from 127 
     chapters in 1997 to 163 chapters, and the number of Internet 
     groups ballooned from 163 in 1997 to 254 last year, the 
     report says.
       Racist rock-'n'-roll music, by bands with names such as 
     White Terror, is also widely available on the Internet.
       ``The organized hate movement in this country is quite 
     clearly growing and has been for several years,'' says Mark 
     Potok, the law center's spokesman.
       But it is difficult to measure whether the rise in hate 
     groups translates into a rise in hate crimes. The FBI has 
     been unable to say whether more hate crimes are being 
     committed or more are merely being reported.
       The increase in hate groups also coincides with a robust 
     economy. Normally, such activity declines in economic good 
     times. But Potok says the booming economy is not making 
     everyone rich, particularly blue-collar workers. Laborers who 
     once made good wages in heavy industry find themselves in 
     lower paying service-sector jobs, he says, and some are 
     attracted to racist groups.