White supremacist John William King was sentenced to death in Jasper, Texas, for the brutal 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr., a Black man. Byrd was chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged for miles in one of the most horrific racially motivated crimes in U.S. history. The case drew national attention and led to the passage of hate crime legislation, including the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.
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