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19981776 Club

Three men chain James Byrd Jr. to a truck and drag him three miles to his death in Jasper, Texas

Berry, Brewer, and King dumped the 49-year-old's remains outside a Black cemetery, then drove to a barbecue.

The night of June 7, 1998, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old African American man, accepted a ride from three acquaintances on the outskirts of Jasper, Texas — a small Deep East Texas city of roughly 8,000 people. Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King drove him to a remote county road, beat him severely, chained him by his ankles to their Ford pickup truck, and dragged him for three miles along Huff Creek Road. Byrd died about halfway through the ordeal when his body struck a culvert, severing his right arm and head. His murderers dumped his remains in front of a Black cemetery, then drove to a barbecue…

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More from June 7
1776

Lee rises in Congress and calls the colonies free and independent states; Adams seconds the motion

Five delegations lack instructions to vote, so a decision is delayed three weeks and a drafting committee is named in the meantime.
1942

Dive bombers sink three Japanese carriers in six minutes; a fourth falls before dark

Cryptanalysts cracked Tokyo's naval code and fed the enemy a lie about a water shortage, and Nagumo's flight decks are crowded with fueled, armed planes when the Americans arrive.
1862

Seward and Lyons sign a treaty giving both navies the right to search and seize slave ships

The Senate ratifies unanimously the same day, ending half a century of U.S. resistance to British calls for mutual search rights on African and Cuban waters.
19421776 Club
The 301st Infantry Battalion met almost no resistance on Attu, where the island held 45 Unangax villagers, a radio technician, and his schoolteacher wife.
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Read the full June 7 edition →Everything that happened on June 7 →
More from Modern America
2001

Atlantis lifts off with Quest airlock; station finally has its own door to open space

Astronauts Gernhardt and Reilly will bolt the 6.5-ton steel-and-aluminum chamber into place across three spacewalks, giving the station a hatch usable by both American and Russian suits.
1995

Discovery lifts off at last; woodpecker damage and a mid-count signal flag had held it back

Six hours after launch, the crew deploys TDRS-G, the last first-generation tracking satellite, raised toward geostationary orbit by the Inertial Upper Stage.
2013

Cassini turns its camera toward Earth; Saturn's shadow makes it possible

Imaging leader Carolyn Porco positioned the spacecraft to catch the sun eclipsed by Saturn, putting Earth in the frame 1.44 billion kilometers away, and millions look up and wave.
1997

Old Ironsides sails again; Cronkite takes the helm off Marblehead

The 1797 frigate moves under her own canvas for the first time in 116 years, on sails paid for through a national campaign of citizen and student donations.
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