n 1854, a white man was executed for killing a black man in Texas; the black man was the slave of a white man, so the crime involved destruction of private property, since blacks were not considered persons who could be murdered. To date, no white man has ever been executed in Texas for killing a black man. However, today a white man is on death row in Texas for killing a black man in the East Texas town of Jasper, population about 8,000, during 1998. The television film Jasper, Texas, directed by Jeff Byrd, is a docudrama based on the events surrounding that murder. What happened is that one night a black man, James Byrd, Jr. (played by Roy T. Anderson), is hitchhiking on the edge of town. A truckdriver picks him up and later stops on the road so that all on board can drink a beer. The driver and two white passengers, all in their twenties, then brutally assault the older black man, tie a chain around his ankles, and drag him on the road for three miles until his head and shoulder are severed from the rest of his body. Evidence leads to the arrest of the three, one of whom confesses how the crime was committed over his alleged objections. The three are charged with the crime and incarcerated, pending trial. The town then becomes the center of media frenzy, FBI intervention, a Black Panther march, and a Ku Klux Klan rally. Mayor R. C. Horn (played by Louis Gossett, Jr.) and Chief of Police Billy Rowles (played by Jon Voight), who have considered the town to be one of biracial peace, now must calm passions before the town erupts into a riot on the scale of Los Angeles. Church pastors, black and white, convene together, and various suggestions emerge. The result is a paradigm for handling racial tensions. Rather than having a change of venue, the trial is scheduled for Jasper, so the pressure is on for members of the jury to preserve their town, and they decide upon a guilty verdict for the ringleader, John William King (played by Michael McLachlin). Since blacks have long kept quiet about racism so as not to cause trouble, the proposal for a biracial task force is accepted; grievances are aired calmly, and efforts to work toward racial harmony are followed up, mostly by Police Chief Rowles. With 12 percent unemployment, there are unfortunately few opportunities to integrate the workforce in the small businesses around town. After the jury decision, fathers of the murderer (played by Eric Peterson) and victim (played by Blu Mankuma) come together in perhaps the most touching moment of the movie to begin the healing. In the aftermath, however, the lessons of Jasper are muddled: The Texas legislature later refused to pass hate crime legislation, and the voters of Jasper voted to abolish pay for the town's mayor and city council. Not mentioned in the film is that the other two defendants were tried and convicted of the crime as well. Much of the film is doubtless based on Dina Temple-Raston's account in A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption (2002), which assigns some blame to economic conditions that brought idleness and tensions to a town once known as the "Jewel of the Forest." The saddest comment is that the film is only for television and DVD home audiences. Jasper, Texas, says something so important, with outstanding performances by the two leading actors, that commercial distribution is warranted, perhaps with a more pretentious film title. MH
I
want to comment on this film
