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"Will the Circle Be Unbroken" "There’s
a small town |
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They left their hotel to find that someone had scrawled "killer" in lipstick next to their town's name. |
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The
Smoking Gun: 60
Minutes II: Dallas
Morning News: Salon: Beaumont
Enterprise: "Not
In Our Town": |
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The Mask of Jasper But when the media trucks and helicopters descended on Jasper, they found a town with an African-American mayor, school board president, hospital administrator, and a population 45 percent black. In the place of smug, angry denials of racism, reporters found a roadside sign, hastily erected after the murder. "Our Texas is hurting, crying," it read. "America, Pray for us." Media depictions of Jasper in the aftermath of the crime were typical of the simplistic analyses that journalists crank out when attempting to explain the unthinkable and wrench meaning from horror in a thousand words. Most concluded that despite the abhorrent crime, race relations in Jasper were no worse--but no better--than anywhere else in the United States. What's stunning about Jasper is that the town did not implode. If any one crime could set off a race riot, the sheer brutality of James Byrd's murder on June 7, 1998, seemed capable of sparking the kind of anger that would lead a community to self-destruct.
But the speed with which law enforcement officers meted out punishment, combined with the Byrd family pleas for peace and justice, earned praise for Jasper from the media. Temporarily, at least, it brought the community together after the crime. The mayor promptly established a task force on race relations, which held a series of open meetings that resulted in frank discussion and dialogue on race. But two years after the lynching, the task force is far less active, and Jasper continues to endure the shame of a reputation its leaders insist it does not deserve. Devastating economic problems burden the town, including the closure of a plywood factory and the blow the negative publicity has dealt to lakeside tourism, its second largest industry. Long-standing sore-points between races remain unresolved--many African-Americans complain about the treatment of their children in school--and the wounds of 1998 still seep. "Will the Circle
Be Unbroken" Roy James, owner of a local copy center called the Paper Chase, read an ad about the sculpture in a magazine and became consumed with the idea that it belonged in Jasper. "It just so happens that an artist--a gifted artist who is internationally known--created this piece with an inspiration that is right out of our headlines," James said. It is a phrase he repeats frequently. "And he didn’t know it at the time when he created it how it would find itself attached to Jasper." Unflatteringly dubbed "the PR man of Jasper" by a local newsman, James has the expansive gestures and impassioned speech of a Southern preacher. When he talks about the Circle of Peace, his enthusiasm gets physical. His gestures become even more expansive, his speech more rapid-fire, until one can almost see him in a robe, whipping the choir into a Sunday epiphany. "I looked at it," he says of the advertisement, "And I mean to tell you, you couldn’t have counted the bumps that were on my body. The hair was up on the back of my neck--and that was before I even read what was on the page as to what inspired the artist to create the piece. And so I did that and it was even more distracting and devastating to me." James says the advertisement continued to haunt him for the next several weeks. "It got to a point that over about a three to four week period, it got so distracting to me that I was starting to lose sleep over it. I literally could not sleep at night," he says. James says he called the number listed in the advertisement only to receive more information. "I said, ‘I’m just a small businessman that lives in Jasper, Texas--maybe you’ve heard of us.’" He spoke with Price’s business manager, and the two men struck up a friendship. The business manager shared details of the phone call with Price, who agreed that Jasper was an ideal place for the sculpture. James then formed the Foundation to raise awareness--and money. At $95,000, redemption won’t come cheap.
But the price isn't a deterrent to James, whose zeal for the project has spread to all aspects of his life. At the Paper Chase, he puts customers on hold to talk about the project and directs others to the model of the sculpture, which sits by the front door in his store. No one can escape the Paper Chase without hearing about the sculpture and how James sees it--as a symbol of racial harmony and an opportunity for Jasper to redeem itself. "For me, I just felt like something was missing," he says. "The trials were over, other things had passed, and everyone says, ‘Thank goodness, now we can get on with our lives.’ We can sit as a community and say, 'Well thank god the trials are over. Thank god all that’s behind us. If a company decides to open up a business and hire a few people, won’t that be nice. We’ll just live the rest of our lives in little ol’ sweet Jasper and leave it at that.’ But you know, we can never really get on with our lives until we respond." James says he believes the sculpture is an opportunity for Jasper to escape the labels that have been placed on other towns that have endured similar tragedies. "A statement that goes unchallenged slowly becomes true," he says. "And the closest example of that that I think that everybody can immediately relate to is Vidor, Texas. It’s the brunt of an ugly joke, and people laugh. The fact that they’re laughing is the tragedy in itself. Somehow that community, the good people that live there, did not respond. They may have reacted, but they didn’t respond." Vidor gained national attention and a reputation as a cesspool of Ku Klux Klan activity after several Klan members protested the federally mandated integration of an all-white housing project. Though six years have passed since the scandal, for many, the name Vidor is still synonymous with racism. The example haunts James, who believes that Jasper will suffer a similar fate if it doesn’t attempt to salvage its image. "The problem is, we still have plenty of people--including the president of the U.S. during the state of the union message--he made a negative reference to Jasper, to further his political agenda and to get some legislation passed. And that hurt me a great deal," he says. Actually, Clinton did not mention Jasper by name. "I said, 'Lord Almighty, we are doomed, we are absolutely doomed. And we have got to change the image.' How do we do that? We can’t do it just by saying we’re wonderful people, trust us, believe us, come visit, we’ll treat you right.’ It’s got to be something that replaces the images that people have had about us." A recent meeting of the Circle of Peace Foundation had the feeling of an old-time Southern revival, complete with singing and prayer. James passed out sheets of paper with lyrics he wrote and asked the predominantly female audience of two African-Americans and fourteen whites to sing the words to the tune of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken": "...There’s a place left in the circle The committee planned an April fundraiser to raise money for the piece, including an exhibition of other Price sculptures and an opportunity to meet the artist. Several Jasper residents have embraced the sculpture as a hopeful sign that the town can eventually recover from the brutality and shock of Byrd’s murder. "I think it is just what we need to show that we are moving forward in the healing process," says George Miller, administrator of Christus Jasper Memorial Hospital. But in a town where the median income is $19,574, the cost of the piece is a point of contention for some who like the sentiment but think the money would be better spent elsewhere. "Jasper’s got some racism problems," says Mike Lout, owner and broadcaster KJAS, one of two local radio stations. "But if I had to put Jasper’s problems in perspective, I’d say 10 percent is racism and 90 percent is, people are hungry," he says. "Why not give that money to needy children?" Others wonder if it’s worth it at all. "Although it’s a good idea, I don’t see how a sculpture could contribute to race relations," says Rev. Kenneth Lyons, a boyhood friend of Byrd's and pastor of his family’s Baptist church, Greater New Bethel. Oddly, Lyons said he hadn’t heard about the sculpture fundraising campaign. A Dark History It was on one of these back country roads that police found Byrd's headless body. " I think what bothered us the most--if he had been shot, stabbed, I think we could have understood it. But it was the way he was murdered, the dragging," says Lyons. "When we would think about it, it would bring tears to our eyes, sorrow in our hearts, that a man’s being dragged, and he's alive while he's being dragged. And while he's being dragged he's trying to save himself. That's what makes it so terrifying to us." He removes his glasses and buries his face in his hands, visibly shaken by the memory. Other residents were equally shocked. "Disbelief is the first emotion I think anyone had, that anyone could do that to another human being," says Julie Webb, contributing editor of the Jasper NewsBoy. "That it would happen here, where a lot of people didn't lock their doors or close their windows at night, was pretty devastating. That was really beyond most people's comprehension. That was something from last century," she says. "It just made me sick, to realize what had happened, what this guy had been through. It just turns your stomach," says Jasper County Sheriff Billy Rowles. Rowles recalls hearing from the medical examiner that Byrd’s elbows had been ground down to the bone from Byrd trying to prop up his head to save himself. "That’s a terrible, terrible way to die," Rowles says. "It just makes you sick that any human being could do that to any living thing." Lyons says the murder was "a wake-up call. And Jasper responded well to the wake-up call." While residents continue to shudder at the gruesome details of Byrd’s grisly death, Lyons says the town has made some strides since the crime in terms of race relations, and he feels confident that Jasper will continue to improve. "I'm a Jasperite. And I love Jasper. And I want to see Jasper prosper," says Lyons. "Those of us who are fair-minded, we're not going to let anybody stop us. We're going to continue to work toward harmony among the races and good will. And to bring about an ideal city here in Jasper." Lyons believes that a planned industrial park and higher education center, along with continued dialogues, will improve the city in years to come. "We're gonna have a different city. I believe the city will make a turnaround and be a number one main street city in America," he says. "It's gonna come. Give us ten years." But he believes Byrd’s murder must continue to serve as a grim reminder of what can happen when a community doesn’t confront its past. "Although it was an isolated incident, I think every racist, every person who has called someone out of their name, every person who holds in their heart some kind of a grudge, some kind of envy of a person of a different color, is just as guilty as these three," he says. Lyons warns that these problems must be addressed directly and honestly, "lest there are three more waiting somewhere who will probably do the same thing one day." "What Crime?" Most area leaders are quick to admit that racism isn’t over in Jasper, but hasten to add that it isn’t much better anywhere else. "For me, as an Afro-American working in this community, I did not see the problems," says George Miller. "I always felt that I had equal opportunity here and felt very welcome." Miller says Jasper’s race relations compare "very favorably" to other communities he’s lived in. "We’re not a backwards town. Texas is a wonderful place. Afro-Americans do well in Jasper and they do well in Texas." Miller says he has experienced racism in Jasper and other towns, but says "You ignore that and just move on. My attitude is, that’s their problem, not mine. I’m not going to spend one second worrying about a problem they have. I know who I am. I’m no better, and no worse, than anybody else. "From my standpoint, I think that we have had diversity in many levels. Is it ideal, the way we’d like it? No. But no city is," he says. "[We have] diversity on the police force, the sheriff’s department. You go in the courthouse, you go to the banks, there’s certainly diversity. I tell everybody, 'I got hired by nine white guys, it can’t be that bad.'" Walter Diggles, executive director of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments and an African-American, says he believes race relations are better in Jasper than other areas. "I think if you compare certain communities--if you compare New York City, I think we’re a lot better," he says, referring to the outcome of the Amadou Diallo trial. (Four white New York City police officers were acquitted of all charges of shooting Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, 41 times.) Diggles points out that while the officers emerged unpunished, two of Byrd’s killers received death sentences, and the third received life in prison. "I think you see the insistence upon justice here, whereas the outside world and the news media projected it as, how could you shoot somebody that many times and then say, well, it was an accident?" he says, "I think that shows there’s a lot more hot spots in the country than there were here." Sherriff Rowles believes that the tragedy led to improvements in Jasper’s race relations. "I can tell you that Jasper is a better place to live right now than it was two years ago," he says. "It’s like an old drunk. In order to get him healed up and sober, the first thing he has to do is realize there’s a problem. And so many times, an old drunk don’t think he’s got a problem until it hits him right in the eye. When the Byrd thing happened here, we realized we had some problems. But the thing is, there’s problems everywhere. And it’s made us look at ours." Does he believe racism still exists in Jasper? "Sure it does," he says. "Does everywhere. Jasper’s no exception to that. The only thing is that we’re probably way more aware of [our problems] than a lot of people are." But in some cases, the mask fits nonetheless. One man, upon hearing Byrd’s murder referred to simply as "the crime," replied, "What crime?" with a smirk. And two Whataburger employees who knew Shawn Berry, one of the three convicted killers, recently insisted Berry wasn't a racist. Berry reportedly did not share ties to white supremacy groups with his accomplices and roommates Russell Brewer or Bill King. Many Jasperites interviewed said they heard the word "nigger" less these days, implying that it is still heard. Is it telling that two African-American leaders agreed with Rowles that Jasper's racial problems are no worse than any other town's? Or does their leadership status naturally exclude them from the kinds of discrimination foisted upon more disadvantaged blacks? Both Diggles and Miller insist that they have faced racism, in Jasper and everywhere else, but call it a "a fact of life" that they are working fiercely to change. But to Unav Wade, a long-time civil rights activist and the owner of a hair salon and wig shop, the indignities aren't so easily dismissed. "We walk around being rejected every single day," she said, taking an old-style heating iron off a hot stone and applying it to customer Lottie Shankle’s hair. "Rejection is a bad thing. Any person that's rejected over and over again is sure to take on a certain mentality. "There are some places I can go here and I don't feel rejected. But I mean the minute I walk in the door, I can feel it, I can tell it. You can feel it inside, you know you're not welcome. They'll stop talking when you come in and just look. And after all these years it doesn't bother me too much. It just gets weary, it just gets tiresome sometimes." Wade, who lived in California before moving to Jasper, says that race relations are worse in Texas than in other parts of the country. "They really think that they're better than me, and they should have privilege over us," she says. "They practice it all the time. They practice it at the bank, they practice it at the restaurants, they practice it everywhere. There are certain rates and things that they get for loans; we never get that. We get the highest rates, we have to put down more collateral. I can't just walk in because I have a business and I'm a respectable person. I can't get a loan just like that, but there's a lot of people who can do that. You know, when you're talking to another white, they can't believe that I just can't do that. I can't do that. Doesn't matter what kind of record I have. Certain things are denied us because we're black." Unlike many residents, Wade doesn’t believe that conditions have improved for blacks since the murder. "As far as how Jasper is in the way of race relations, I would say that most blacks don't feel like there's a change. A lot of people are in denial. They can't see it. They just don't see it. They think they're all cool, but they're not. I think white people think it's changed since James Byrd. I bet you they think it's changed, because they're trying, but they don't know how 'cause they've practiced so long in their minds," she says. She believes that the open dialogues after the murder were constructive, but ultimately proved to be a temporary panacea. "I think some people were really shocked at how we were really feeling and what we were really experiencing in the black community. I think all the talks and things that we did during that time opened their eyes to our feelings," she says. "But as far as them changing their attitude and the way they are, I can't see any difference." Wade and Shankle chuckled with resignation, swapping stories of how the police harassed their sons when they were growing up. "You laugh to keep from crying," Shankle said, "but it’s the truth." Wade says that even well-meaning whites are often unaware of their own racism. "I'd be afraid to trust that a white person was my friend. I would be suspicious of their purposes," she says. "But you know, there's exceptions to everything. There are white people that are really, really good people. There are. But they'll up and say something that's so racist. And they don't realize that it's a racist remark." Shankle says she doesn’t know what it would take to improve race relations. "I'm waiting for Jesus to come. Jesus to come," she says. "That's probably the only thing that's gonna change it."
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