[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 96 (Thursday, July 1, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7973-S7974]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         REVEREND KENNETH LYONS

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to make a comment about 
Reverend Lyons, who just opened our Senate session with a prayer, 
because he is a very special person to me and to the State of Texas and 
really to all Americans.
  A little over a year ago, a heinous crime was committed in the small 
town of Jasper, TX, when James Byrd, Jr., was brutally murdered simply 
because of his race, dragged to death by three men in a pickup truck. 
The senseless killing riveted the Nation and many feared the outbreak 
of civil disorder. But Rev. Kenneth Lyons helped still the troubled 
waters. He is pastor of Greater New Bethel Baptist Church where James 
Byrd's family worshipped every Sunday.
  Pastor Lyons spoke fearlessly to people of all races. He said, ``This 
must have been a divine wake-up call to the consciences of men. You 
can't fight fire with fire.'' He urged not vengeance but harmony and 
peace.
  Reverend Lyons' wise leadership personified Abraham Lincoln's call to 
the ``better angels of our nature.'' He helped unite the people of 
Jasper, TX, in their commitment to equality and justice, to rise above 
hatred and despair.
  Millions of Americans watched that small town of Jasper, TX, as it 
came together because of Reverend Lyons' plea for redemption and 
healing. Because of his faith and eloquence, we are better people.


                       Response In Jasper, Texas

  There are other heroes in Jasper, TX, and it was one of the great 
moments of my life to be able to go to Pastor Lyons' church and attend 
the burial ceremony for James Byrd, Jr., and to meet the kind of people 
who make this country what it is. I met James Byrd, Sr., and Mrs. Byrd, 
Renee Mullins, James Byrd, Jr.'s daughter, and his son. I met people 
who had just endured something that none of us ever want to have any of 
our family or friends ever endure. James Byrd, Sr., was saying: There 
is no hate here; there is love in this family.
  That was the beginning of the healing process not only in Jasper, TX, 
but a model for America--when something we cannot possibly understand 
happens, someone steps forward and says we can't let this tear all of 
us down. James Byrd, Sr., started that process.
  I want to talk about Billy Rowles, the Jasper County sheriff, who did 
not let one minute pass when he got that call on that fateful Sunday 
morning and he heard the beginning of what was

[[Page S7974]]

going to be a nightmare for his town. Billy Rowles started making 
calls, and he said: This is not going to stand. We are going to have 
justice in Jasper County. We are going to have justice from what I am 
hearing over the phone on Sunday morning. And because of Billy Rowles' 
leadership, justice is on its way.
  The mayor of Jasper is R.C. Horn. He was right there on the phone 
talking to Pastor Lyons, making calls to all of the clergy in Jasper, 
TX, that Sunday morning, setting the tone for what would be the 
message: That this community is not a bad community and I want every 
one of you in your pulpits on Sunday morning to say this is a community 
of love. Mayor Horn was one of those people who started the healing 
process.
  Guy James Gray, the district attorney of Jasper County, was not going 
to let anything slip by. He was going to make sure the people who 
perpetrated this heinous crime would come to justice.  Of the three 
people who have been accused, thanks to the good work of Guy James 
Gray, one has been convicted.

  And there is Walter Diggles, the executive director of the Deep East 
Texas Council of Governments, always there behind the scenes, trying to 
help in this first week when all of the attention was focused on 
Jasper, TX. Jasper, TX, had never had the attention of the world 
focused on it.
  But because of Walter Diggles, Billy Rowles, and Guy James Gray and 
Mayor Horn and the James Byrd, Jr. family, these people were able to 
withstand all the television cameras and all the people who came from 
outside to give them advice they did not really need because they knew 
what was the right thing to do. They knew that to keep their community 
together they were going to have to talk about love, not hate. They did 
not need anybody coming in from outside to tell them that because they 
were speaking from the heart. They didn't have focus groups and they 
didn't have advisers and psychiatrists. They did not need organizers 
and spinmeisters because they were doing it from the heart. And they 
have created a model that every community will follow if it wants to 
keep a community together after a terrible tragedy.
  I want to add one more to this list because I have never seen 
anything like what happened in the trial of the first of those accused 
of this murder. There you saw the father of the accused, named Ronald 
King, sitting in the courtroom every day, absolutely devastated by what 
his son was accused of doing. This father, who adopted this boy to give 
him a chance in life, sat in that courtroom in support of his son, but 
devastated at what he was hearing in the courtroom. Mr. King came out 
of that courthouse every day, and he said: I don't blame the Byrd 
family for any bad feelings that they would have, and I apologize to 
the Byrd family. I support my son and I love my son and I always will, 
Mr. King said, but he said I understand how James Byrd, Sr. and his 
family feel and my heart goes out to them.
  James Byrd, Sr. reached back to Ronald King and he said: I understand 
your pain. This is not your fault, and we will be strong together.
  Ronald King is a hero, too, because what Pastor Lyons and the city of 
Jasper and all of those I have mentioned have done for our country is 
to show us that the spiritual community can make a difference by 
preaching love when there is a lot of opportunity for hate, and how 
that divine love can keep a community together, can make us remember 
our strengths in this country, and not dwell on the weaknesses.
  I applaud Jasper, TX, and these leaders and Pastor Lyons, whom we 
have heard today; James Byrd, Sr. and his family; and Ronald King, for 
showing us that this is a great country and we are going to take a 
terrible tragedy and we are going to make this country stronger, as I 
believe it is today, because of a very small group of people who didn't 
need national advisers to tell them what was right. In fact, they have 
shown us what is right about our country.
  Thank you, Mr. President.

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