Sexual Dilemmas Summer 1995

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Strangely, I felt there was hope for healing the divisions in my city when I saw what didn't happen after Annie Ray Dixon was killed in the summer of 1992.

Annie Ray was an 84-year-old grandmother, a double amputee, and African-American. A botched drug raid went to the wrong house, and a white deputy busted through in Annie's bedroom door. Tragically, his gun went off and killed Mrs. Dixon as she lay in bed. The African-American community in Tyler, Texas, was outraged; the incident had the potential of blowing up the city.

I was about 200 miles away in Houston when Mrs. Dixon was killed. Some fellow members of a citizens' action group, Tyler Together, phoned me and asked if I could intervene and keep the peace.

Our first stop was the sheriff's office; he was considering limiting the investigation to his internal affairs department. But we convinced him that such a limited approach would only increase the outrage and fuel the rumors of cover-up. He wisely decided to forgo an internal investigation and call in federal investigators. Adding to the frustration of the black community, though, the deputy was not indicted for misconduct, and he returned to the streets on active duty.

Then the NAACP called for a march and rally in Tyler to dramatize the racial situation there. Responding, the Ku Klux Klan announced a simultaneous counter demonstration and filed for a parade permit for the courthouse square. Fans of writer John Grisham will see remarkable similarities in "A Time to Kill," which chronicled a fictitious confrontation between the NAACP and the KKK in a southern town.

But this wasn't fiction. My fear of racial violence was heightened by the anger I heard as I visited both sides. The national news media descended on Tyler, ...

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