By Cheryl Eddy

WHEN THE COPS first found the battered, headless body on a back road in Jasper, Texas, they thought they were dealing with a simple hit-and-run accident. But soon the terrible truth became clear: the two-mile trail of reddish marks leading to the scene was made not by tires, but by blood, and the victim – James Byrd Jr., a local resident well-known in Jasper's African American community – had been tied to a vehicle and dragged to his death. On coming to this grim conclusion, the sheriff – who was white – had one thought: he hoped white folks hadn't done this.

As anyone who followed this disturbing case, which grabbed national headlines, is well aware, the perpetrators were white – three young men who shared an affinity for racist tattoos and groups like the Confederate Knights of America. In 1999, when the trial of each man was held, filmmakers Whitney Dow (who is white) and Marco Williams (who is black) traveled to southeast Texas and made Two Towns of Jasper, screening as part of this year's San Francisco Black Film Festival. The documentary peels back the layers of a seemingly average American town. The center it reveals is as divided as Jasper's cemetery, which as late as 1998 was split by a fence that segregated blacks from whites even in death.

Dow and Williams used a unique approach: an all-black crew documented black residents, and an all-white crew filmed whites. This technique eliminated potential racial barriers between subject and camera, and the payoff is sometimes ugly but always honest. Two Towns contains very little courtroom footage, no interviews with the three killers, and hardly any facts about the victim. Instead, the work focuses on the impact of Byrd's murder on Jasper's residents. In the black community, the perspective shifts between Byrd's family, the women who frequent Unav's Hair Salon (a manicurist notes ominously, "Jasper has a lot of skeletons in its closet"), and community leaders both spiritual and secular. While the entire African American population feels grief over Byrd's death and anger over the circumstances surrounding it, some feel the "official" response to the crime, spearheaded by the mayor (who is black) and others, focuses too strongly on "healing" with the white community. A brief scene illuminates another, ultimately unexplored option, when a group of Dallas-based Black Panthers roll into town, toting guns and making their presence felt.

Meanwhile, the town's whites – who are depicted as being different from the blacks only in terms of race; it's clear the economic situation in Jasper is grim all around – react to the crime with a mixture of sorrowful disbelief (evidenced most strikingly by one killer's brother, who seems as horrified that his little bro could commit such a gruesome act as he is by the act itself), casual (and not-so-casual) racism, and as demonstrated by the steely-eyed district attorney, determination to make a statement by convicting all of the accused. The white equivalent of Unav's customers are a gaggle of self-declared "Bubbas" who hang out in the restaurant of a local hotel. At one point they muddle through a discussion of "the n-word" – one man admits he doesn't understand why it's offensive (and we get the feeling he never will). Similarly, the white newscaster at WJAS radio, whose reports form what little narration the film has, obtusely remarks (off the air) about African Americans and the Confederate flag, "They're taking it personal now, but they didn't before."

While the segments that focus on the crime and the trials are compelling, it's the little details that allow Two Towns to paint such a poignant picture. During a high school assembly, a camera pan reveals that all the black kids are sitting together by choice, as are all the whites. During the town's annual Rodeo Day parade (which features a black grand marshal), a float sails by bearing a noose and a sign reading "Frontier Justice." The Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday is canceled to create a makeup school day ("They're just doing what they normally do," sighs an African American pastor. "They didn't realize it's insensitive.") The remarkably revealing Two Towns ends on a mixed note: two death penalty verdicts and a life sentence later, Jasper's most heinous criminals are punished – but we've yet to see the racism that has been entrenched in the town for so long really begin to fade. 'Two Towns of Jasper' screens Fri/14 as part of the San Francisco Black Film Festival, Delancey Street Theater and Town Hall, S.F. See First Runs, in Film listings, for show times.

San Francisco Black Film Festival