Jasper
What happens to a town identified with one of the worst hate crimes in American history?
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The trials also provided Jasper with a sympathetic storyline that helped absolve it of guilt. Testimony revealed that King had not expressed hatred for blacks while growing up in Jasper; only when he was incarcerated for burglary at the Beto Unit, in Tennessee Colony—a so-called gladiator unit—did he choose to survive its brutal culture by joining an all-white gang called the Confederate Knights of America. By the time he was released, he was spewing anti-black rhetoric and had covered much of his body in racist tattoos. Still, the message was clear: He had not learned to hate in Jasper. Nor had Brewer, who hailed from North Texas and had only been passing through town. But Berry was harder to explain. Berry—who prosecutors argued was not a terrified bystander, as he had portrayed himself, but an active participant—was so well-regarded in Jasper that two black witnesses testified on his behalf. What his involvement in such a savage crime really meant was never fully examined. Berry was sentenced a week before Thanksgiving, and just as suddenly as the TV cameras and satellite trucks and inquisitive reporters had descended on the town, they left. For Jasper, life went back to normal.
TODAY, JASPER LOOKS UNSCARRED BY HISTORY. It is the kind of town where kids ride their bikes down Main Street and Scripture is quoted in casual conversation. Locals gather each morning at the Belle-Jim Hotel to trade the latest news over plates of biscuits and gravy, and around town, the conversation centers on the upcoming Jasper Bulldogs game. On a main artery through town, U.S. 190, yellow ribbons flutter next to "We Support Our Troops" signs, and logging trucks stacked high with timber rumble by every now and then. North of the courthouse lie rambling Victorian houses and oaks draped in Spanish moss; to the south stand sagging trailers that are going to seed and empty lots where stray dogs roam. Everywhere there are signs of devotion. Fifty-four churches are scattered around town, on street corners and under pine awnings and down old, rutted roads. Some believe that when Byrd was murdered, their town was divinely appointed. "Perhaps this tragedy happened in Jasper because we were spiritually prepared to shoulder the burden for the nation," said Father Foshage.
Nearly a mile from the courthouse, next to the largely black public-housing project where Byrd lived out his last days, sits a church whose sign reads "God Is Like Bayer Aspirin. He Works Wonders." The Faith Temple Church of God in Christ has become a platform for dissent. Its pastor is the Reverend Ray Charles Lewis, the former president of the local NAACP chapter and the most outspoken black minister in Jasper. "Yes, I'm the town radical," Lewis acknowledged with a chuckle when I visited him this fall. At 42, Lewis does not have the gravitas of some of Jasper's older preachers; he is wiry and slight and full of nervous energy. But he has made his voice heard, arguing that little has actually changed for blacks in Jasper since the Byrd murder. What improvements have been made, Lewis says, are cosmetic and were done for the sake of public relations. Lewis sees the acts of repentance that followed the killing—like the razing of the cemetery fence—as well-intentioned but empty gestures. "You want change?" Lewis asked. "Take a black person and bury them in the white section of the cemetery. There would be some white folks who would dig their loved ones up."
Five years after the Byrd murder, Lewis sees an opportunity lost. "We stood before the cameras and said there was no racism, no problems, in Jasper," he said. "We said the media should leave and we'd be all right. We did this because we wanted to keep the peace. We didn't make big demands. And not much changed. Where are the black people in law enforcement? In the banks? At restaurants?" Lewis sees the few black employees who were hired after the murder as tokens of appeasement, not harbingers of change. And while much has been made of Jasper having a black mayor in 1998, Lewis is of the opinion—as are a good number of blacks in Jasper—that R. C. Horn, now a Jasper city councilman, was little more than a figurehead for a city government run by whites. Horn is seen as a kind man but not a person who fought hard for the black community when it required a forceful voice. Lewis believes that the mayor's task force was "just for show" and that it was formed for one reason. "It was done to send a message to the media: 'We're handling it. Leave us alone,'" he said. "They spent a lot of time identifying problems, but they didn't take any action. The town meetings made white people more sensitive to what we face, but what came out of them? What really changed?"
Many whites are angered by Lewis's criticisms and discount his "extreme viewpoint," which they say is out of step with the black community. ("White people think he has a chip on his shoulder," one white resident told me. "He doesn't have a large following," said others.) But time and time again, when blacks were reluctant to be interviewed about race relations in Jasper—"We have to live here," one woman explained—they referred me to Lewis, whose church, contrary to conventional wisdom among whites, is crowded with parishioners on Sundays. His outspokenness has earned him respect in the black community; at the Pineview Apartments, as the public-housing project next to his church is called, Lewis is routinely greeted with smiles and waves and shouts of "Hey, Rev!" Ministering to the poor, Lewis sees the aftermath of segregation; all but one of the four hundred Pineview residents are black. "Until we start talking about equal hiring and lending, we're not really dealing with racism," Lewis said. "We can have town meetings and do all the soul-searching we want, but what black people need is a fair shot at jobs and loans."
A bail bondsman by trade, Lewis enjoys taking on the establishment. His victories are usually small but symbolic; he is perhaps best known for standing up to the school board five years ago. The board had been forced to retool the 1998-1999 academic calendar when construction at the high school cut into the fall semester and students needed to make up class time by taking fewer vacation days. The majority-white board, in turn, deemed Martin Luther King Jr. Day expendable. Jasper's annual Rodeo Day remained on the calendar as a holiday, even though the rodeo—a popular event for whites but less so for blacks—took place after school hours. Blacks saw not only gross insensitivity in the board's decision, which came just months after the Byrd murder, but a double standard. Lewis made an emotional plea to the Jasper ISD superintendent during a community meeting that fall. "We want that day no matter what it takes, even if we have to let our kids go to school on Sunday," Lewis said. To prove his point, he threatened a student walkout. The board reinstated Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday, but not without leaving a bitter impression. "We were in the process of healing then, and that was a slap in the face," Lewis said. "The rodeo is not a national holiday."
Today, Lewis knows that the symbolism of Byrd's murder is lost on some whites. "People still have trouble believing that a crime like this could happen in Jasper," he explained. Some cling to the notion that the killing was simply a drug deal gone wrong. Others, insensitive to the larger significance of Byrd's death, grouse about the town park that was recently named in his honor. ("Why would you name a park after him?" one white woman asked me, puzzled. "He wasn't a role model. He was a drunk.") Their ignorance, Lewis believes, is shaped by their perception that Jasper has never had racial problems. "It's easier for whites to forget," he noted. But what whites have elected to erase has not faded from blacks' memories. They remember which white families once owned their ancestors. They remember the indignities of Jim Crow. They remember being afraid to venture out after dark. Some of the older men among them, like Lewis's uncle Thomas Lewis, remember being handcuffed by police officers and then struck with blackjacks. They remember when, in the sixties, a teenager was beaten beyond recognition for talking to a white girl from a prominent family. "He looked like he had two heads when those lawmen were done with him," said Thomas.
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