Ricky Byrdsong (June 24, 1956 – July 3, 1999) was an American college basketball coach and insurance executive.
Byrdsong was the first African American head coach of the Northwestern Wildcats men's basketball program.
"[7] On July 2, 1999, while jogging near his Skokie, Illinois home with his son and daughter, ages 8 and 10, Byrdsong was shot by Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, a member of the white supremacist Creativity Movement who went on a shooting spree that killed one person and injured ten others.
Smith committed suicide on July 4 after he crashed his car into a metal post during a high-speed chase in Southern Illinois.
Anya Cordell, Byrdsong's neighbor, wrote the anti-hate crime book Race: An Open and Shut Case.
Cordell said that she was inspired by the urge to combat the hate that fueled Benjamin Smith's deadly shooting rampage.
Byrdsong's children also received college scholarships from the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, an organization which helps victims of families from hate crimes.
In 2009, a documentary about Byrdsong, entitled Fly Like the Byrd, was created by Northwestern students from the Medill School of Journalism.