... other groups in the community will not protect them. When perpetrators of hate are not prosecuted as criminals and their acts not publicly condemned, their crimes can weaken even those communities with the healthiest race relations. In 1996, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) received reports of 10,706 hate crimes from state and local law enforcement agencies, involving 11,039 victims, and 10,021 known perpetrators. The crimes included twelve murders, ten forcible rapes, 1,444 aggravated assaults, 1,762 simple assaults, and 4,130 acts of intimidation. Among the known perpetrators, sixty-six percent were white, and twenty percent black. One hate crime that brought realization to the American public that hate crimes do exist was the horrific murder of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas. On June Seventh, 1998 James Byrd Jr., a forty-nine year old black man, was chained to the back of a pick-up truck in Jasper, Texas, and dragged along an asphalt ...

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