Anderson, James Craig, Murder of

Around five o’clock in the morning on 26 June 2011, ten white teenagers attacked and killed forty-seven-year-old James Craig Anderson in Jackson, Mississippi. This case was particularly notable for its legal and widespread media recognition as a racially motivated hate crime.

Passed in 1994, Mississippi’s hate crime statute states that prosecution must prove that a crime was committed because of the actual or perceived race of the victim, among other factors. A report from the Jackson Free Press found that because alleged hate crimes have to pass from local enforcement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it was less likely for local law enforcement to report racially motivated crimes for further federal investigation. As this report also noted, there had been only a few other hate crime cases in Mississippi prior to Anderson’s death. Attorneys for the suspects in the case objected to the “racially motivated” aspect of the case because racially motivated hate crimes bring more severe consequences. The trial determined Anderson’s case to be racially motivated, however, and the ten teenagers each received sentences ranging from four to fifty years in prison.

Deryl Dedmon, John Aaron Rice, Dylan Wade Butler, William Kirk Montgomery, Shelbie Brooke Richards, Sarah Adelia Graves, John Louis Blalack, Jonathan Kyle Gaskamp, Robert Henry Rice, and Joseph Paul Dominick conspired to harass and assault Black people in or near Jackson after a night of partying on June 26. All from predominantly white Rankin County, the teens would frequently drive to Jackson in search of vulnerable Black people to harass or assault. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, members of the group had committed four other racially motivated crimes. The teens created their own system and slang for their planned—yet randomized—attacks. They referred to Jackson as “Jafrica” and described their attacks as “rolling.” Often with Dedmon as the ringleader, the group targeted people whom they thought were incapable of defending themselves and were less likely to report the assaults. Ideal victims were people who appeared to be homeless or intoxicated.

On June 26, the teenagers were in two vehicles: Dedmon’s Ford F-250 pickup truck and a white Jeep. The teens in the Jeep saw Anderson and alerted the other vehicle that they had found a potential victim near the Metro Inn. Once Dedmon arrived, the group began beating Anderson. Although the surveillance video footage did not show the beating, it did show Anderson being run over by Dedmon’s truck. As the teens filed into both cars, the Jeep pulled off. While Dedmon was reversing, he saw Anderson staggering to get back on his feet. Dedmon then accelerated into Anderson and ran him over before speeding off onto the highway. Witnesses claimed they heard Dedmon yell racial slurs throughout and after the attack. His co-conspirators admitted that Dedmon frequently used racial slurs before, during, and after the crime.

On August 12, following the CNN video report, approximately five hundred people marched a mile down Ellis Avenue, from New Horizon Church to the Metro Inn, to bring attention to both the case and Mississippi’s history of racialized violence. The group attended a vigil organized by local activists Cassandra Welchlin and Kass Welchlin. With a similar intent to bring attention to state and national histories of racism and violence, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), a creative work, included a memorial piece questioning what led to Anderson’s death. Rankine used Dedmon’s youth and his pickup truck as metaphors for the persistence of racially motivated violence.

Following his death, Anderson’s family created the James Craig Anderson Foundation for Racial Tolerance. More recently, in 2016, judge Carlton Reeves ordered restitution to Anderson’s estate for $840,000. Reeves also delivered a speech on racism in Mississippi’s past and present to the defendants. A Black federal judge, Reeves emphasized the fact that the crime was committed in a predominantly Black city with a Black mayor and district attorney. A Black US marshal escorted the defendants in and out of the courtroom, and lawyers working under a Black US attorney led by a Black US attorney general prosecuted them.