A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder, and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption
by Dina Temple-Raston
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dina Temple-RastonEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2003-01-10
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 352
Book Reviews of A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder, and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption
Book Review: Research And Copy Reading Aside....
Summary: 4 Stars
Having lived in the Jasper/Newton area during this time and knowing several of the "actors"(sheriff Rowles, Billy Ray Robinson, and Joe Sterling)I have long wanted to read this book and finally have taken the time to finish nearly 80% of it.
The book, to those outside the area, is an awesome read. For us "locals" it pretty well tells the tale but, as others have pointed out, there were so many geographical and historical errors that are evidence that the book was either rushed to print or no one bothered doing any fact checking.
As mentioned before the author has the 3 men headed on Highway 59 to Burkeville from Jasper when , in reality, it is state highway 63....also, when she states Bill King's girlfriend gave birth to his premature baby and it was in the intensive care unit at a Newton County Hospital....The only hospital in Newton County closed in the late 80s or early 90s and, even if it were open, they hadnt delivered babies for some years before that....as also mentioned Vidor was not named after King Vidor altho I guess that makes good copy to associate a KKK town with the director of the first all black movie production.
There were also obvious misprints such as Joe Sterling becoming Joe Sperling for a whole page of dialogue before reverting back to Sterling...as said it probably doesnt bother someone from other areas but to us, who live here and lived through this, it smacks of ineptitude from someone having the credentials of the author.
What the book did bring out was the awesome job Billy Rowles and others did keeping the peace. This was the summer the movie "A Time To Kill" came out on video and it mirrored a lot of what could have happened in Japser. I think it is to Sheriff Rowles credit that things never got out of hand and the people of Jasper and Jasper County should always remember his service.
Overall, other than the few obvious mistakes, the book is a good read and I would definitely recommend it to anyone
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Summary of A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder, and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption
An extraordinary account of how a small Texas town struggled to come to grips with its racist past in the aftermath of the brutal murder of James Byrd, Jr.On June 7, 1998, a forty-nine-year-old black man named James Byrd, Jr., was chained to the bumper of a truck and dragged three miles down a country road by a trio of young white men. It didn't take long for the residents of Jasper, Texas, to learn about the murder or to worry that the name of their town would become the nation's shorthand for hate crimes.
From the initial investigation through the trials and their aftermath, A Death in Texas tells the story of the infamous Byrd murder as seen through the eyes of enlightened Sheriff Billy Rowles. What he sees is a community forced to confront not only a grisly crime but also antebellum traditions about race. Drawing on extensive interviews with key players, journalist Dina Temple-Raston introduces a remarkable cast of characters, from the baby-faced killer, Bill King, to Joe Tonahill, Jasper's white patriarch who can't understand the furor over the killing. There's also James Byrd, the hard-drinking victim with his own dark past; the prosecutor and defense attorneys; and Bill King's father, who is dying of a broken heart as he awaits his son's execution.
Just as Bernard Lefkowitz pulled back the curtain on Glenridge, New Jersey, in his classic work Our Guys, Temple-Raston goes behind the scenes in Jasper, Texas, to tell the story of a town where racism and evil made itself at home
In the small town of Jasper, in the piney woods of deep East Texas, old slave relations still live below the surface along with an unwritten code of segregation. It was there that James Byrd was savagely dragged to death by three white men in a pickup. His death threatened to blow the town open. Dina Temple-Raston poignantly captures Jasper's desperate attempt to save its image as Jesse Jackson, the New Black Panthers, the KKK, and the media descended. In the process, she delves into such questions as, What does racism look like and where does it come from; follows the murderers to their final destination at Huntsville prison (ground zero for 40 percent of American executions); and shows how death forces people to see things the way they really are--and just how quickly they forget. A Death in Texas is a stunning and painful book that exposes racism in all its subtle and violent forms, and portrays the small heroes who try to change history. --Lesley Reed
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