A L S O+T O D A Y Russian roulette By Jeff Stein Though all of the recent anthrax attacks against abortion clinics have turned out to be hoaxes, emergency crews responding to them have discovered a new problem   T A B L E+T A L K Share your thoughts and opinions on the Juanita Broaddrick interview in the Politics area of Table Talk   Find deep discounts and great selection on the books you need to read at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author       R E C E N T L Y Dumping scandal: The export of bad blood By Suzi Parker One thousand Canadian victims demand answers from Clinton and others about the export of contaminated blood products from U.S. prisons long after they were no longer sold domestically (02/25/99) Robertson redux By Frederick Clarkson Splits in the religious right will make it hard to recapture the Christian Coalition's glory days (02/24/99) Flynt's revenge By Carol Lloyd The porno king and Official Republican Humiliator tells why he did it, the real reason the Washington Post ran his ad and what he'd do if he had five more lives (02/23/99) Rush to defeat By Neal Pollack Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is a shoo-in thanks to a weak campaign by a congressman who should have been a contender (02/23/99) The ugliest story yet By Joan Walsh Why the Wall Street Journal ran the Clinton rape story that no other reputable news organization would touch (02/20/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		______Justice in Jasper   In the face of naked evil, a community comes together. BY FAULKNER FOX JASPER, Texas -- The mood in the courthouse here Thursday was one of quiet, respectful triumph as John William King received the death penalty for one of the most heinous crimes in recent American history, the murder of James Byrd Jr., whom he dragged to death behind a pick-up truck. The historic sentencing -- the first time a white man in Texas has received the death penalty for killing a black man since the death penalty was reinstated in the late 1970s -- was met with a stunning display of racial unity in the courtroom. White and black Jasperites held hands in suspense while the decision was being read, then embraced each other afterwards. Three African-American residents -- Willie Rhodes, Gloria Mays and Marolynn White -- raised their hands in triumph. The family of Byrd's family was silent and tearful. Exiting the courtroom, Stella Brumley, Byrd's sister, said that justice had been served. "No doubt about it." As King, who has shown no remorse during the trial, was taken from the courthouse after his death sentence, a reporter asked if he had anything to say to the Byrds. "Suck my dick," he spat. I was a bit nervous driving down here from Austin, where I live. King's crime, the brutal, senseless torture of a disabled black man by a white supremacist, conjures up the worst images of backwards Texas towns. People here tend to think of Austin as an oasis, the non-Texas part of Texas. We might venture out to nearby state parks, where we are likely to meet up with travelers from California, New York or Pennsylvania, but we don't usually go to small Texas towns. Bigotry, violence and angry white men in pick-up trucks are what we imagine. And what Bill King did to James Byrd Jr. this past June represented our worst nightmare. "Be careful in Jasper," everyone warned me. "People are crazy down there." One white friend who has family in East Texas said she knew most people were shocked by the Jasper murder, but she wasn't. "I'm just surprised it made it to trial," she said. "Black people disappear down there all the time." I'm a white woman, originally from a small town in rural Virginia with roughly the same racial makeup as Jasper -- 45 percent black, 55 percent white -- so I thought I knew what I might find. As I got close to Jasper, population 8,400, the landscape was filled with tall stands of pine trees, innumerable churches, scary-looking white men in Bubba hats out in their yards burning what I hoped was trash, little stands selling fireworks and gun stores. One church, Prince of Peace Baptist, had this saying on its marquee: "It hadn't started to rain when Noah built the ark." All I could wonder was, What kind of ark does a black man need in Jasper County? But with the exception of a wolf-whistle from three white men with fishing poles in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart, the ominous "In the Heat of the Night" atmosphere that I feared never materialized. In fact, I have been completely bowled over by what I have witnessed in Jasper. Maybe it's not always like this here, maybe the world-media fishbowl or the trauma of the crime have created only a temporary harmony, but I've never witnessed this level of interracial dialogue, warmth and respect anywhere -- certainly not in the big "liberal" city of Austin. N E X T+P A G E+| Blacks and whites weep and hug in the courthouse   PHOTO BY SIBYLLA HERBRICH