Word: jasper
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...that demands tearing a human being limb from limb and scattering his or her remains to the winds to quench some dire compulsion for cosmic order. That kind of bacchanalia, bloody and bestial, did not perish with the age of Sophocles. The remains of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper County, East Texas, are testament to its endurance...
Primal myth now intertwines with a modern one, that of the New South. In Jasper, which is 55% white and 45% black, the New South is embodied in a black mayor and a white sheriff, both of whom came swiftly forward to declare the attack an isolated, containable hate crime. "We have no Aryan Nation or K.K.K. in Jasper County," said Sheriff Billy Rowles. Mayor R.C. Horn reinforced the notion: "We don't show any animosity here. This town has been about loving each other. If it was different, I wouldn't be mayor." Residents of Jasper...
...JASPER, Texas: Just when Jasper thought it had gotten over the horrendous killing last week in which three white men are accused of dragging a black man two miles to his death, along comes the KKK. Klansmen plan to hold a rally at the sawmill town's courthouse on June 27, a mere two weeks after the funeral of James Byrd Jr. While their appearance is the height of bad taste, and does not represent anything like the majority opinion in this racially mixed environment, City Attorney Gary Gatlin says he can't stop the white-robed ones from showing...
...Klan's past record suggests otherwise. But in accepting this more irksome instance of free speech, Jasper can take strength from its numbers. More than 500 attended Byrd's funeral; so far, only 20 Klansmen plan to show...
...Thankfully, not very deep. Jasper's white residents did not need prompting to show their disgust toward suspects Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer and John King. Even King's father disowned his son in an apology to the Byrd family Wednesday: "I want to say I'm sorry," he wrote. "It hurts me deeply to know that a boy I raised... could find it in himself to take a life." And Sheriff Billy Rowles had a plea for the country: "Don't label us; we're good people." Rowles need not worry. Some of the South's ghosts may have been...