A Father’s Lament

For one father, this Father’s Day was not a day to gather with family around cards and presents.

Instead, James Byrd Sr., whose son’s savage death at the hands of alleged white supremacists in Jasper, Texas, grabbed headlines two weeks ago, spent Sunday visiting two Southland churches and talking about peace and reconciliation.

“Love is able to heal all wounds,” Byrd said before attending services at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.

The church, along with Praises of Zion Baptist Church in South-Central Los Angeles, invited Byrd to speak to their congregations as part of a Christian anti-racism program and to raise money for the three children of his slain son.

James Byrd Jr., 49, was chained by the ankles and dragged behind a truck for more than two miles June 6. Authorities found his torn body on the road.

The three man accused in the crime, Lawrence Russell Brewer, 31, John William King and Shawn Allen Berry, both 23, are allegedly linked to white supremacist groups and targeted Byrd because he was black. They are in a Jasper jail awaiting trial.

The incident shocked the nation, and black leaders attending funeral services in Jasper last week pointed to Byrd’s killing as stark evidence that violent acts of racism can still occur.

The Rev. Ed Bacon of All Saints echoed those feelings when he called the incident an “unspeakable crime from another era.”

“I was absolutely horrified and my heart broke,” he said.

One woman who gave Byrd an envelope containing donations and letters of support said, “I think the only way to stop them is through violence.”

But Byrd called for restraint and said his son’s death should serve to unite people.

“Jesus, through his suffering, we gained something,” Byrd, a deacon at a Baptist church in Jasper, told the congregation in Pasadena.

Byrd, his voice barely audible under the church’s immense arched ceilings, said his son’s own suffering should not be in vain.

“I wish peace among all people,” he later said.

Byrd said his family has received tremendous support from Jasper authorities and its community. Messages of condolence have been pouring in from all over the world, he said, some from places the 73-year-old Jasper native had never heard of.

“There have been so many calls, it is impossible to answer them all,” said Byrd, who also visited New York.

He said relations in his town, where the population of 80,000 is evenly divided between African Americans and whites, have improved.

“I’ve seen it better now than before,” Byrd said.

Byrd’s pastor, the Rev. Kenneth Lyons, who was accompanying him, agreed. Both men said Byrd Jr.’s death has galvanized the black and white communities, which have always coexisted peacefully but rarely interacted.

“I’ve never seen it like this,” Lyons said. “Our hope is that nothing like this will happen again to anyone’s son or daughter.”

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Still, the Ku Klux Klan has plans to parade in Jasper on Saturday. Two factions of the group were given permits to march. City officials have urged residents to ignore the marchers.

“They can march all they want,” said Byrd, adding that he believes in freedom of choice and speech. But “they don’t have my permission,” he added.

At the Praises of Zion Baptist Church, the Rev. Joe Hardwick lauded Byrd for his courage and poise.

“We dare not retaliate with violence, with hatred,” Hardwick told his South-Central congregation. But “we have come too far. We have marched too long. We have prayed too hard, and we have cried too long, to let racism prevail.”