The apparently racist killing of a black man whose dismembered body was found on a Texas back road has united blacks and whites in the small town of Jasper still in shock at the horrific details.
The victim was chained to a pickup truck and dragged for miles as his body was dismembered. Three white men have been charged with the murder.
The Rev Jesse Jackson, the nation's leading black spokesperson, who rushed to comfort the family of the dead man, James Byrd jnr, has called his death the most heinous crime of its kind since the racial killings in Mississippi 50 years ago.
President Clinton called the murder "shocking and outrageous". He called on the people of Jasper "to join across racial lines to demonstrate that an act of evil like this is not what this country is all about." The President has been promoting a "dialogue" on race relations as one of the priorities of his second term.
The Congressional Black Caucus on Capitol Hill called the killing a "gruesome lynching".
As he led clergy from the black and white communities in a vigil at the church of the victim, the Rev Jackson said: "When I looked at those ministers, white and black, I thought what a great opportunity to close the race gap. What a moment to find common ground. Thank you for citizens, black and white, who refuse to let hatred win."
The three men now charged with the murder of Mr Byrd (49), a divorced father of three, are suspected of links to racist groups but there is no evidence so far that the crime was part of an organised conspiracy. It is pointed out, however, that the racist Ku Klux Klan is active in the largely white town of Vidor about 50 miles away where the Klan opposed the integration of public housing several years ago.
The Jasper County sheriff, Mr Billy Rowles, has insisted that the killing was "an isolated incident". He said that there was no organised Klan group in the county but two of the three accused white men had shown racial hatred signs when in prison.
These are Mr Lawrence Russell Brewer (31) and Mr Sean Allen Berry (23). The third accused is John William King (23).
The Jasper County District Attorney, Mr Guy James Gray, has said that Mr Brewer and Mr King had racist tattoos and were Ku Klux Klan supporters.
The Mayor of Jasper, Mr R. C. Horn, who is black, told the New York Times that there were no unusual racial problems in the town which has almost equal white and black communities. He said that Jasper, a timber industry town near the border with Louisiana, "has a strong bind together, both black and white", but some black residents have told media that "there's a lot that goes on but it's pushed under the carpet".
Mr Byrd's mangled body was found last Sunday about 10 miles from his home. He was last seen at a relative's wedding party the previous night. Mr Byrd was a former salesman who had been recently living on welfare because of unidentified seizure problems.
He was hitch-hiking home when he was apparently picked up by the three accused men. Some time later he was chained to the back of the truck and dragged down a country road. His severed head, neck and right arm were later found separated from his torso which lay in a ditch a mile away.
Mr Berry has told police that he was driving around in the truck with the two other accused after midnight on Saturday when they saw Mr Byrd. Mr Berry, who is reported to have known Mr Byrd, offered him a lift although Mr King objected because he was black. Later, the truck stopped at an isolated spot and Mr King and Mr Brewer started beating Mr Byrd, according to Mr Berry. Then Mr Byrd was tied to the back of the truck and dragged for two miles down a winding road.
According to Mr Berry, Mr King said, "We are starting the Turner Diaries early", a reference to an underground novel about a race war that may have served as a blueprint for the Oklahoma City bombing of a federal building three years ago.
The three accused all have prison records. Two of them, Mr Brewer and Mr Berry lived in Jasper most of their lives. Mr Brian Moody, a farmer who knew them, said that drugs and alcohol had ruined their lives. "At one time these boys were no worse than a dozen others around here their ages. But marijuana and booze changed their tunes," he said.
Prosecutors in Jaspar are seeking new evidence that would make the accused liable to the death penalty. If they can also be accused of kidnapping or if the killing is show to be racially motivated, they could be sentenced to death if convicted under federal law. The Southern Poverty Law Centre in Alabama which monitors racist hate crimes says that up to 50,000 people may be connected to white supremacist groups but that only 5 per cent of all hate crime are committed by members of such groups.
The Ku Klux Klan denounced the brutal, apparently racially motivated killing of Mr Byrd as "a senseless tragedy" and denied any involvement, according to an e-mail published in the Beaumont Enterprise (Texas) newspaper yesterday.