YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T HEAR that Ken Tillery of Jasper, Texas died a most horrible death on January 19. Most likely, you have never even heard his name before. But the town of Jasper probably rings a bell in your mind.

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Almost four years ago, that was the site of one of the most appalling crimes in living memory. There, on June 7, 1998, three white racists in a pickup truck crossed paths with a 49-year-old black mannamed James Byrd, who was walking home from his niece’s bridal shower. The trio offered to give Byrd a ride, and after he accepted, they chained his ankles to the back of their truck and dragged him nearly three miles to his agonizing death. In the process, the victim’s head and right arm were severed from his body, the mutilated remains of which were thereafter dumped in front of a black cemetery. This grisly incident made national news; indeed all of America was riveted to the story for weeks.

Jesse Jackson, who personally visited Mr. Byrd’s family to express his condolences, presided over Byrd’s funeral at Greater New Bethel Baptist Church in Jasper. In his eulogy, Jackson made it clear that this crime – because of its racial component – was of supreme national significance. "Turn a crucifixion into a resurrection," he exhorted the mourners. "There is power in the blood of innocents. [Byrd’s] innocent blood could well be the blood that changes the course of our country’s history." The implication was clear: Perhaps white America would now, at long last, condemn and strive to extinguish the ugly flame of racism that still raged in its collective heart.

Also among the notables attending the funeral were Texas state senator Rodney Ellis, Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, California congresswoman Maxine Waters, Houston mayor Lee Brown, U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume. "The lessons here should go beyond this generation," said Mfume, "to others who will come behind us, so that for once we will say in a collective voice and in a real way in this country: never again, never again."

Not surprisingly, Al Sharpton was on hand as well – accompanied by Moses Stewart, the father of a young black man who had been shot to death by a white gunman in New York nearly a decade earlier. The racial symbolism of Stewart’s presence was clear. "Jasper has an opportunity to come forward and to turn race relations around before the century is over," said Sharpton at a news conference.

After the funeral, some fifteen shotgun-toting black militants marched menacingly through the streets of Jasper. "We are here to say that violence and racism and hatred of the white man in America is just as American as apple and cherry pie," said the group’s leader, Khalid Muhammad.

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson lamented that all Americans were "diminished by this act [Byrd’s murder], but from the depths of our pain, the fog of all our disbelief, we are going to emerge stronger." President Clinton called the killing an "act of evil" that was "shocking and outrageous." "Our work for racial reconciliation and . . . an end to all crimes of hatred in this country will go on," he pledged.

The editorial and op-ed pages of publications from coast to coast were flooded with denunciations of the abomination committed against Mr. Byrd. Many of those pieces characterized the killing as simply a branch of the vein of racism that ran deep through the bedrock of the American character. As the Reverend Floyd Flake – a prominent New York minister and a former congressman – wrote in the New York Post: "Anyone who simply believes that the funeral for James Byrd is the final chapter in this tragic episode does not understand the fear that still grips so many African-Americans whose decades-past experiences taught them lasting lessons about ignorant racism and its very real and personal threat to them." To emphasize the pervasiveness of the problem, the ABC News website ran a headline: "Hate is Growing in America." Following was an article explaining that fully 474 separate "hate groups" existed in the United States.

Shortly after Byrd’s death, the NAACP initiated an effort to rename Jasper’s Lone Star Community Center in his honor, proposing that it be called the James Byrd, Jr. Community Center for Racial Healing. Moreover, noting that "violent hate crimes have been committed against African-Americans or African-American organizations . . . in most every region of the nation," the NAACP demanded that "the United States Attorney General appoint a racially and geographically diverse Task Force . . . to investigate, monitor and take appropriate action against hate crimes committed by [people] who have past or current allegiances to white supremacist organizations."

But where does 44-year-old Ken Tillery fit into all this? Just a month ago, in the town of Jasper, three men in a car offered Tillery a ride, which he accepted – only to be kidnapped and driven, against his will, to a remote location. When the terrified Tillery jumped out of the vehicle and tried to flee, the kidnappers caught up with him, beat him, and finally ran over him – dragging him to his death beneath their car’s undercarriage.

Ken Tillery’s name is unfamiliar to most Americans. Though he died very near to where James Byrd had died before him, few people outside of Jasper ever heard about his gruesome slaying. No civil rights activists attended his funeral. There were no pained op-ed pieces lamenting his death. No prominent political figures issued public statements about the national significance of his killing. Mr. Tillery, you see, was white, and his three killers – Darrell Gilbert, Blake Little, and Anthony Holmes – were black. Thus his death had no political currency for those whose reputations depend upon their ability to portray themselves as crusaders for justice, ever guarding against white racism. Even though black-on-white killings far outnumber the white-on-black variety in this country, unfortunate people like Ken Tillery die in complete anonymity – as opposed to unfortunate people like James Byrd, whose deaths are spotlighted in the national media. Should a murder victim’s skin color determine the significance of his or her death? It’s a serious question, well worth pondering.