The Billy Ray Johnson story
3 TOWNS: THE PAST, THE PRESENT, THE FUTURE
No black-and-white answers
Plotted on a map, the towns of Paris, Linden and Jena line up neatly along a 300-mile diagonal that falls across the Texas-Louisiana border.
TRIBUNE UPDATE
Beating victim's advocates face off
The first time Billy Ray Johnson was victimized, a group of white youths lured the mentally retarded black man to a party, made him dance for their entertainment as they hurled racial epithets, beat him unconscious and finally left him for dead beside a garbage dump.
$9 million award in beating case
Billy Ray Johnson was not in court Friday when a jury in the small east Texas town of Linden assessed $9 million in civil damages against the four white men who beat him unconscious and left him for dead beside a garbage dump.
Old South racism lives in Texas town
They picked up Billy Ray Johnson outside a convenience store in this East Texas bayou town, a place where Confederate flags fly in some front yards and a mural of barefoot slaves picking cotton greets patrons inside the local post office.
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