On This Day, June 7: White supremacists kill James Byrd Jr.

President Barack Obama was seen applauding alongside Louvon Harris and Betty Byrd Boatner, sisters of James Byrd, Jr., who was a victim of a hate crime. This happened as Obama made remarks on the passing of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act at the White House in Washington on October 28, 2009. Byrd was killed on June 7, 1998, by three white supremacists who dragged him for 3 miles behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas. The incident led to the passing of a Texas hate crime law and the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

On this day in history:
– In 1776, the Lee Resolution was introduced in the Continental Congress, which led to the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
– In 1864, Abraham Lincoln was nominated by Republican delegates for his second term as president, with Andrew Johnson as his running mate.
– In 1942, Japanese forces occupied Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands, but U.S. forces retook the islands a year later.
– In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law banning contraceptives.
– In 1967, Israeli troops captured Jerusalem during the Six-Day War.

Other events on this date included the first videocassette recorder going on sale to the public in 1975, Nicaragua expelling U.S. diplomats and the Reagan administration responding in 1983, South African President F.W. de Klerk lifting a state of emergency in most areas in 1990, and the fatal lynching of James Byrd Jr. by white supremacists in 1998.

In 2002, U.S. missionary Martin Burnham was fatally shot during a rescue attempt in the Philippines, while in 2008, Sen. Hillary Clinton officially ended her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama.

In 2013, a bus fire in Xiamen, China, resulted in the death of 42 people, and a shooting rampage in Santa Monica, Calif., left six dead, including the gunman. In 2021, a collision of two express trains in southern Pakistan caused at least 40 fatalities and numerous injuries.