I'm not sure if you were watching American Idol last night but the lede to a story was brushed by (for now). Savion Wright wrote a song for his brother mentioning only that he had died in the previous weeks prior to the taping of last night's show. It was clearly stated that he was from Jasper, TX. And Jasper became infamous for what happened to James Byrd Jr. there in 1998.
There is a new name you'll be hearing more about in the coming months and his name is Alfred Wright, the brother of Savion Wright who we met last night on American Idol. Alfred was going about his job as a Physical Therapist when he disappeared on 7 November of last year. His body turned up 18 days later(25 yards from where he was last seen) after his family and friends conducted a search of their own because the Sabine County Sheriff's Department gave up the search after only four days.
Wright, who was last seen Nov 7 at a package store in Hemphill, is a 2003 graduate of Jasper High School. Rosalind Wright says her son earned a $100,000 scholarship to play football at Mary Hardin-Baylor. After two years, Wright transferred to the University of Tennessee where he earned a physical therapy degree. Wright graduated Magna Cum Laude. His mother describes him as family man with three sons ages 8, 4, and 2. According to Rosalind Wright, his wife Lauren was the last person he talked to the day he went missing. He told her he was having trouble with his 2008 Dodge Hemi pick-up truck.
A toxicology report attributed Wright’s deathto a lethal combination of cocaine, methamphetamine and amphetamine, and said there were no signs of foul play. A forensic pathologist hired by the family disagreed with that last point, saying she found “signs suspicious of homicidal violence” on Wright’s body, including a cut across his neck.
Wright’s body was found in a field near where he’d disappeared weeks earlier, missing his eyes, an ear and some teeth—damage the official autopsy attributes to animal activity, but which some activists take as signs Wright was tortured before his death. Wright’s case has been a lightning rod in Jasper’s African-American community; rallies and fundraisers for Wright’s family have featured other stories of black men and women who’ve died or disappeared in the area under mysterious circumstances.
Congress woman Sheila Jackson Lee has requested the Justice Department to investigate. The Texas Rangers are also conducting a separate inquiry.
As an outsider to this area of Texas I was more uncomfortable working in there more than any other in Texas and I'm white. It took courage on Alfred's part for him to work this area, but it shouldn't have. Why in this day and age do we still allow there to be pockets where a person of color isn't safe to even do their job?