(poignant music)
(cars whooshing)
(truck engines whirring)
(poignant music)
(wind blowing)
- Racism was terrible
in this part of town.
- It always had been r*cist in Jasper.
- People had to go to the back
door and it was Mr. Felcher,
you had to call mister to a
child and all that kind of jive.
Very divided.
A white section and a Black section.
- Everyone stayed at his
place and did his own thing.
They didn't mingle or socialize
or anything like that.
- Jasper was a town of
mixed emotion in my opinion.
I'm not sure that that
is a good description,
but that would be my way of
saying it had some good people,
and some people who were not so good
as far as the relationship
between Black and white.
I remember one particular
time walking downtown,
and I stepped to the side of the street
to let a gentleman pass,
and he walked by me about two steps,
and turned right around,
and said, big boy,
I should kick your, whatever.
And I never shall forget,
I had a little temper at that time,
and I replied to him, if you do,
this will be the last one
you'll kick in this world.
And I often think about that.
But now I would probably smile
and say, I'll pray for you
because you need prayer.
(car whooshing)
(poignant music)
- It was a shock.
We hadn't had nothing that terrible.
We had had men's k*lled here before,
but it wasn't nothing like
my son, James Byrd Jr..
That was something that hadn't
happened in a long time.
(poignant music)
I couldn't say what led up to it,
but it could have been anywhere
'cause as long as where there is hate,
you'll look for something like this.
(gentle music)
- I did a little research
on the population history of Jasper.
If you look back, back
in those earlier years,
the population each year,
at least from my time back in the 1930s,
populations increased.
And then after the 2000,
when all the craziness was going on,
the population seemed to decrease.
And I don't know if that was the reason,
but it began to decrease
to where it is now.
There needs to be some kinda
way to kind of stabilize that.
And I think what I'm personally seeing
is that some of the Black folks
who left, along with myself,
who've gone off, and
done well in other parts,
and then come back and
are trying to give back
to the community, and we're
trying to help create jobs,
and create some leadership.
And I see that happening now.
(gentle music)
This is the old school
campus, old J.H. Rowe campus.
And in our minds, it was
just a magnificent campus,
and it was just disappearing
with integration.
Integration happened in 1968.
These nice buildings and things
were just being torn down,
and names were changing,
and stuff like this,
'cause there was no history for us.
We were J.H. Rowe Tigers
and the mascot had become
J.H. Rowe Bulldogs.
And my group that I grew up with,
we just thought that was inappropriate.
So we wanted to keep the
J.H. Rowe Tiger alive,
and that's where it started from.
We put together a committee
and we decided that we would
try to put a monument down here
that would remember J.H. Rowe Tigers.
And as you can see on the monument here,
we got two tigers up
there on the pedestal, so.
I'm an industrial engineer and
I have the ability to design
and all that kind of stuff.
And so I was named the
chairman of the committee,
and then we went to work on
designing and building it.
I wanted it to be all Black labor.
So we did all of this
with all Black labor.
- My role was I'm a shovel man.
I know how to read blueprint
and form up for concrete,
and pour concrete, and finish
concrete, that's what I done.
I also got another friend of
mine that named Tony Brick.
He's another Black guy.
He knew how to lay brick.
We got him and he laid all the brick.
- These bricks that you
see on that wall there
came from the old Rowe school.
So there's about 3,600 bricks
that we used from the old
school to build this with.
And we sold those bricks for
a hundred dollars a brick.
And that's how we financed it.
All of these are in alphabetical order
starting with Betty Fay Adams,
and it goes right on along
in alphabetical order,
probably about five,
600 names on this wall.
This is the school's alma mater,
"To our dear Rowe High homage we pay,
for in our lives you are ever a ray.
In adoration and hearts full of pride,
our love will forever
with Rowe High abide."
I, for one, was happy
with separate and equal,
but it wasn't separate and equal.
But we did a hell of a job
with what we had, I think.
- There are no other place like this
within a hundred miles
of Jasper that I know of,
where when they integrated
they've done something
of this magnitude.
- This wall of honor was generated
primarily for the same
reason as the memorial.
There's an area in Jasper
that has a recognition
of military folks and there's
not a Black person on there.
And that's where I came
up with that idea from.
- This is my dad's brother, Uncle Raymond.
He's one of the only veteran
honored with the Purple Heart.
He passed in Vietnam in 1970,
about four months before
the end of the w*r.
- Those of us who served
and those of us who died,
there were four people,
four people from Jasper area
that died in Vietnam.
And there's no recognition
anywhere in Jasper
about that except at the
Lone Star Youth Council.
- I wanted to try to preserve
some history for what we done,
and we done some good things,
and then we had a lot of people that done,
our parents done what they
could do back in the day.
So we supposed to do what we can do.
(upbeat music)
- He was almost home.
You can't say they did it
because he was in the community
disturbing the peace or anything.
But he was almost home.
And they said, this man, this young man,
I'm not gonna call his name.
And he was told, he wanted
to be initiated in the Klan,
and that's the way they do it.
You got to had a m*rder or something.
So they just picked him up,
and carried him out to Huff Creek,
and just put him behind a truck,
and just pulled him until
they pulled his body apart.
(somber music)
- They picked James Byrd up in town
and they drove him out here to Huff Creek.
And they crossed the bridge
right there with him.
It was dark at night
and they pulled up in
this dim road right here
so they could hook him up with the chain
just in case somebody
would come by and see him.
They hooked him up in here with the chain
and then they come out with him.
From what all indication
they said he was still alive
and they drug him up this road.
(somber music)
His head hit a culvert when
they went around the curb,
and he was swinging his arm like that.
And his head hit that culvert
and it took his head off.
Probably didn't know his head was off,
but they kept on going to the cemetery,
and that's where they were
planning on dropping him at
where he needed to be at, at the cemetery.
They took the chains off
of James Byrd right here
in the middle of the road,
took the chain off of him,
threw it on the truck.
Then they took off and left
his body it right here.
And came on to the car
wash to wash the chains off
and wash the truck off.
That's where they got 'em.
(somber music)
Well, they called me at church
and asked me would I come out here.
They had the road blocked off,
and they thought it was a guy
that worked for me because
they couldn't identify him,
he looked like a guy that worked for me.
So I was out here doing the whole ordeal.
(somber music)
(poignant music playing faintly)
- Well, Juneteenth means everything to me.
For it to be finally recognized
as a federal holiday,
that even means more.
And when Juneteenth became a holiday,
it was celebrated three
years ago in downtown Jasper.
And it's at a park down there,
it's a real nice park down there.
And they had it down there, but
there were no participants.
Black folks just wouldn't go.
You know, Jasper has been a
pretty rough place, you know,
for Black folks.
And a lot of folks have those memories.
I was on the Chamber of Commerce
when they tried to have it that
year and it didn't work out.
And so the executive
director of the chamber,
she told me they would
finance it if I'd run it.
And so I said, okay, we'll do it.
And they did exactly that,
and we too contributed.
We thought that if we got a
hundred people to show up,
that would be a good start.
Well, lo and behold,
there was more than that
and we couldn't even
count the number of folks
that showed up last year.
So this year, we prepared for 200 folks,
but then everybody and his
brother started donating stuff,
donating watermelons.
The folks that own
restaurants donated the ribs
and we had somebody else
to donate the sausage.
(upbeat music)
- Oh yeah, that look good, man.
Yeah, that's that
good-looking stuff there boy.
Make me happy
And make me smile with glee
Now never will I feel discouraged
(foil crackling)
(guests chattering)
(upbeat music playing faintly)
(lid creaking)
Johnny got a meat skin laid away
To grease that wooden leg so they say
Johnny got a meat skin laid away
To grease that wooden leg so they say
Grease that wooden leg so they say
Grease that wooden leg so they say
Johnny got a meat skin laid away
Johnny got a meat skin laid away
Grease that wooden leg so they say
Grease that wooden leg so they say
- This is Sandy Creek and about
a hundred yards downstream
is where my great-grandfather
Billy McCrea,
who was a freed sl*ve, set
up his homestead down there.
- [Billy McCrea] Next time you see,
there come a whole troop of
Yankees, all riding horses,
big g*ns a-hanging on in there,
and all like that you know.
Yeah.
We all would standing looking
at them, all going home.
And I said, I ask them,
I said, I ask them,
I say, Mama, where they going?
Said they all going home now.
- When I found out about how Billy McCrea
was in the Library of Congress
that just made us search
a little bit more,
just to find out a little
bit more about him.
- So Grandpa Billy had a
big house, and a cabin,
and all of this stuff
up here on Sandy Creek.
He was born in 1851 and he died in 1947.
So he was about 96 years
old when he passed away.
But there was a group called
the WPA, the Works Progress.
His name was John Lomax.
They came out and
interviewed Grandpa Billy.
The way I felt about after
I heard him sing and talk,
I said, well, oh my goodness,
when I read his sl*ve narrative,
I couldn't even make out half
the words that was on there.
And he ending up singing like BB King
and speaking like Martin Luther King.
(Billy McCrea singing)
- [Billy McCrea] How you like that?
- [John Lomax] That's a good one.
- Lomax started recording these musicians
in areas such as East
Texas and what have you,
ordinary folk.
But he was fascinated with
that music, blues, and jazz,
and just country,
and just the people's
music fascinated him.
He recorded it, he took it upon himself
to record everyday life
of a different culture.
That wasn't his culture,
but he recognized that that was value.
And without him having done that,
future generations, my generation,
the generation following me
would not know about that
music because it would be gone.
Come on, boys, let's go to hunting
Come on, boys, let's go to hunting
Dog in the woods, he
done treed somethin'
Dog in the woods, he
done treed somethin'
Come on, boys, let's go to hunting
Come on, boys, let's go to hunting
Dog in the woods, he
done treed somethin'
Dog in the woods, he
done treed somethin'
Come on, boys, let's go to hunting
Come on, boys, let's go to hunting
Dog in the woods, he
done treed somethin'
Dog in the woods, he
done treed somethin'
Dog in the woods, he
done treed somethin'
(gentle music)
- I've done some research
about Professor Rowe
and I just thought he
was a genius of a man.
When you think about the
times when this was going on,
I just don't know how on earth
he was able to pull it off,
to get this school, become the principal.
He didn't have a college degree
when he became the
principal of the school,
but he got his degree
while he was the principal
of the school.
The school was called the
Jasper Colored School then,
it wasn't J.H. Rowe, it became
J.H. Rowe after his death.
(gentle music)
I was a good student.
I was a good student and
I was a good athlete.
But I was a student athlete,
which I preach today.
I think kids ought to be
student athletes, you know,
don't forget about education
and I got a very good education.
(gentle music)
- I am the curator, basically.
I'm local, I take care of the museum.
After my elementary school years,
I came here to J.H. Rowe High School.
I was a student and athlete.
And I considered myself good in both.
Didn't have many run-ins with people
'cause I knew how to stay away from 'em.
I was taught how to stay away from that.
I lived the farthest out so
the school gave me the keys
to a vehicle that I
would take athletes home,
parked the car in my yard,
my parents yard rather,
and come back to school the following day,
they entrusted me with the vehicle.
(vibrant jazz music)
- It's still the only school
that had a state
championship in Jasper County
in football.
And these were the athletes, the coaches.
And that jacket there is a
replica of the championship team.
(vibrant jazz music)
And this is a replica of
the sanitation type stuff
that we had back in those years.
That's an outhouse.
And we had several of those on the campus,
but that's what we had to do, right there.
They had mens and boys outhouses.
Just thought it was important
that when we were having
a tour, I just open it up,
show 'em the stall and the
type paper we were using.
We were using "Sears and Roebuck" catalogs
and anything else we could
find to use as paper.
We lived in some really
unsanitary conditions.
(vibrant jazz music)
This building was originally a
Prince Hall Masonic building.
In 1993, I believe it
was when it was converted
to the Lone Star Youth Council.
We became a 501(c)(3)
organization in 1993.
The Lone Star Youth Council
is a very good organization.
The building is available for rental
and we also give scholarships,
just off the top of my head,
we've probably given over
$200,000 worth of scholarships
to our youth here.
(vibrant jazz music)
These photographs that
you see here on the wall
were all taken by Alonzo Jordan.
There were no other
photographers during the era
that took pictures of African Americans.
And he was the only one.
He took all of these pictures
along with all the principals
and also with all of the pageantry
that went on during those years.
(gentle country music)
- I, Helen Jordan, I'm 95 years
old, I was 95 in September,
was married to Jordan in 1939.
We lived together until he died.
(gentle country music)
Alonzo was a devoted Deacon,
he was a barber and a photographer.
He photographed about 12 high schools,
and he loved his job, and loved his work,
and loved the brethren.
- My name is Eddie Shelby,
Mr. Jordan and my father, Cleveland Shelby
were Prince Hall Masons.
Sometimes they held meetings,
stressing family values,
a sense of community,
a sense of belonging,
and a sense of responsibility
to the community.
Alonzo Jordan was one of the
first professionals we had
in this community.
He set an example by
being a church member,
by being a barber, by
being a photographer.
But most important, by giving
us a sense of belonging
to the community and responsibility to it.
- See, in the Black community,
we didn't have photographers.
Mr. Jordan was sort of a icon to us.
Jordan's Studio, the only
Black studio in Jasper
or in East Texas.
His way of taking pictures
just made you want to be a photographer.
- Black photographers had been ignored
by the larger community for years,
even though they were incredibly important
to the Black community
because they were preserving
part of our history and our culture.
There were these photographers
who documented the Black
community for decades.
And it was Documentary
Arts that came along
and said we want to
preserve these works of art.
(calming country music)
(calming country music)
When I was working as a columnist
for the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram",
I got a call one day from a
woman, who happened to be white,
who said she had in her possession
something that she
thought I would wanna see.
And as we talked, what she had
was something that her mother
had actually given to her as a child,
but that she had kept for a long time,
and had really sort of forgotten about
until she was going
through things, I think,
after her mother passed away, and says,
she wondered why her
mother had this photograph?
'Cause it was a photograph of a lynching.
(somber music)
There were copies of this photograph
that had been put on postcards
and sent all over the country,
perhaps all over the world.
- When I think about the
woman who shared this photo
with Bob Ray Sanders, it
raises a lot of thoughts
in my brain.
I'm gonna say she felt socially compelled
to tell the world here's further proof
of what did happen historically
and more people ought to know about it.
And this image doesn't lie, this is truth.
- People used to get dressed
up, put their Sunday best on
to go and see a hanging.
And they'd go back home,
and eat a good dinner,
and sleep good at night after
seeing something like that.
- [Bob] And I mean
children and older people,
and it was the entertainment for the day.
- From the African American community,
there is a large segment
that believes we need to
leave the past in the past.
There's an old African saying
about the Sankofa bird,
you have to look back to
know where you're going,
but there's a large segment
that says, don't do that,
look forward, climb up,
and let the climb be what you're after.
That when you look too far
back, it's too much ugliness
and it just pulls us down.
But you have to see it
because it's reality.
Life is not always pretty.
It's beautiful sunshines,
and all like that, horizons.
But living life is tough,
and those photographs
prove that that happened,
and we just have to deal with it.
- "This is only the
branch of a Dogwood tree,
an emblem of white supremacy.
A lesson once taught
in the Pioneer's school
that this is the land
of a white man's rule.
The Red Man, once in an early day
was told by the whites to mend his way.
The n*gro now, by
eternal grace, must learn
to stay in the n*gro's place.
In the Sunny South, the Land of the Free,
let the white supreme forever be.
Let this a warning to all Negroes be
or they'll suffer the
fate of the Dogwood tree."
People read that poem,
I'm sure many of them
recited it over time.
That poem is haunting in itself
because it says what
the majority of people
in that town thought about
the other people in that town
and in this place.
(poignant music)
- I was waiting for him.
He was supposed to come by
and carry one of his
neighbors to church.
But something happened
that morning, I didn't go,
and it was about afternoon
before the police come and told me
that my son James Byrd
Jr., they found a body
and they thought it was his.
I didn't have but two boys,
rest of them was girls.
If he had been in the
neighborhood raising sin,
it'd been hard but I could accept it.
But he was coming home.
My son, and they just overtaken him.
(somber music)
He was a person
only harm he did was to hisself.
Wasn't nothing too good
for him to do for anybody.
And he loved music.
He was very young.
He was in his forties
when they k*lled him.
- It had a pretty tremendous effect.
We had never seen anything
that heinous before,
not in my lifetime.
It took some doings from
the people in this town
to keep a lid on things.
And I was here, and I lost,
I guess around about 16 days of work,
working with our sheriff
at that time and our DA
trying to keep a lid on things around here
because they could very
easily have gotten outta hand.
- And so the FBI came in
and investigated that crime,
one of the worst crime in the
United States ever happened,
to k*ll a Black man at that time.
(somber music)
- We met at the Courthouse Square,
I think a day or two after the incident
and it was hundreds of people there
on the Courthouse Square.
I belonged to the Minister's
Alliance and we had a vigil,
we prayed and did all that we
could to help the community.
They asked us not to go down there
when the Black Panthers came
and when the Ku Klux Klan can came,
they came and marched, and everything,
and we didn't go down there.
And they were ready and ready to come
and to stand on the Courthouse
Square and to proclaim it.
The Ku Klux Klan came to, said it
maybe it was the right thing to do
or they wanted to put in after
but the Black Panthers came loaded.
You know, I don't know whether
the g*ns were loaded or not,
but they had 'em, and I saw them myself.
Al Sharpton came and Jesse Jackson came
in support of trying
to get rid of the hate
that might be within our community.
- So we had people from all over the world
came to Jasper, Texas.
And we got justice.
That's all we wanted, justice.
We wanna see them men to be punished.
We couldn't let 'em go all free
because we got justice on it.
Two of 'em got the death penalty
and one got life without parole.
But it didn't bring James
Byrd back, his life back,
he got destroyed, it was
sadness for the family, yeah,
so we got justice, yeah.
(intense music)
- I knew Berry, one of
the guys that participated
in the k*lling of James Byrd.
I knew him pretty good because
he worked for a tire company
that I'd done business with
and I thought he was
a good friend of mine.
And it's just something
I would've never thought
would've happened.
And I had to testify to that
in court during the trial
that I knew Berry and I done it
because I knew it was the truth.
I knew him.
I thought I knew him.
You never know an individual.
Some people act differently
when they're with a group
than they would if they
were by themselves.
So I think he got in with some hardcore,
two hardcore people,
and he couldn't back up.
He couldn't get out of it.
Berry was a good fella as far as I know,
but when you get with the
wrong group, things happen.
(intense music)
(gentle music)
- The Huff Creek community
is a Freedom Colony.
Once sl*very ended and Black
folks became freed men,
then they had to have somewhere to go.
So they got together, and
they would settle in areas,
and they called 'em Freedom Colonies.
And that's what this is.
This is one of the Freedom Colonies.
And this is Huff Creek Cemetery.
It's a Freedom Colony cemetery.
And then the school back there
is a Freedom Colony school.
We put the marker up there
so as to have something
for the kids to understand when growing up
that there was a reason for this building.
It went through the first
through the sixth grade.
And they had two teachers there.
And they taught there for 16 years.
And the school closed in 1960.
(calming music)
The Huff Creek Elementary School
and the Rock Hill Elementary School
are Julius Rosenwald funded schools.
And Julius Rosenwald Fund
was a fund created by Julius Rosenwald
who was a Jewish philanthropist.
And they, in turn, would provide
a certain percentage of funding,
maybe half to the community,
and then the community
would do the other half
to get these schools built.
In my mind, the way to
get people to understand
about Black history is to do it.
And that's what we have embarked on doing.
We lived it and we just need
to bring ourselves together
to get it out there in the public.
We're doing this by utilizing
folks who walk the walk,
then demonstrate it to
the rest of the public.
I'm packing up, I'm
getting ready to go
Packing up, I'm getting ready to go
Packing up, I'm getting ready to go
I'm packing up, getting ready to go
- I'm very passionate
about this particular area.
My elementary school was here,
I went one through eighth grade
on this particular campus.
Bobby Joe Hadnot was my very first cousin
and the reason Bobby
Joe Hadnot's name is here
is when this property came up for sale.
Bobby Joe Hadnot was very
instrumental in the community.
And Bobby Joe and I worked
through the entire process
of getting the financing and everything
for this particular building.
But he passed away
about two years after we
purchased the property.
(poignant music)
I started thinking about Freedom Colonies
and after we'd gotten
the historical marker
from Texas Historical Commission,
that was about the Freedom
Colony itself overall.
But then I was thinking that,
hey, I went to school here,
and I'd like to recognize the people
that was influential in my life.
So I sat down, and I wrote this,
what's on this marker here.
And George Adams and I
figured out how to construct
this marker, monument here
I guess you could call it.
But the Sankofa was
something that I had learned
from Freedom Colonies, that
was part of Andrea Roberts',
Texas Freedom Colonies Project
and Sankofa is their avatar.
So I felt like, well, what
I'm talking about here
was us reaching back, and
pulling stuff from the past,
and bringing it to the future.
And we need to continue to do that
because there are a lot of
young people out here right now
who knows nothing about
the Freedom Colony.
(poignant music)
(birds chirping)
- Okay, well, good morning.
So, how long have y'all
been in town so far?
- [Student] Since Monday.
- Third day.
Have they worn you out yet?
- They've tried.
- Okay, well, not too bad.
Okay, so this is the Jasper
County Historical Museum.
Jasper is the county seat
and what we're working to do in here
is to tell county history,
although we tend to focus
a little bit more on Jasper
because that's where we're
sitting, we're in Jasper.
Jasper's one of the original 23 counties
in the Republic of Texas.
We're part of where
Texas' history started.
My name's Tod Lawlis, I'm the director
of the Jasper County Historical Museum.
I decided that one focus
for me would be to make sure
that it is a museum that
tells everybody's story
in Jasper County.
That it's not the white museum,
there's no Black museum.
It is Jasper County.
There's a section here
on Freedom Colonies.
If you're not familiar with the story
of the Freedom Colonies,
it's a very interesting
post-Civil w*r story.
And we have one very
well-known one here in Jasper,
the Dixie community.
Again, you're welcome to look around.
If you got questions, I am
here to answer 'em for you.
- This program is the
American Exchange Project.
It is a project to bridge
the cultural divide
within the continental
US, to bring students
from other parts of the
country into an area
that is opposite of their own,
to be able to immerse them
in a different culture
and see that we can all live together.
- I got involved in AEP
through my math teacher.
She wanted to sign me up
to give me the experience
to go somewhere else.
And she knows I'm a very
honest person with my opinions.
So she was like, I would
really love and appreciate
if you did this for me to show our school
and our school district
that this is a good program
to have here in Albany.
- I'm really concerned about the earth,
and where it's going,
and people may not be concerned about it
just because like we live in this era,
but I think it's important
for our posterity
to like enjoy this planet,
like it's modern way.
They should live in a healthy
planet, enjoy their lives,
and not having to deal with the mistakes
that their previous generations made.
- In the aftermath of the
m*rder of James Byrd Jr.,
Jasper did face a lot of challenges.
I'm certain that when students
were randomly chosen to come here,
when they possibly Googled our town
that popped up and concerned them.
But I think since they've arrived,
they see that there is much more to offer,
and that we have healed as a community,
and we are interested in moving forward
in a positive manner.
- My impression of Jasper
is pretty excellent so far.
I love the people here.
I love the community.
I come from a tight-knit
community in Albany.
We're a town of about 18,000
people in a square mile,
so everybody knows everybody,
but I love it here.
I love this weather, I love the people,
I love just being in the open
and having everything kind of spaced out.
(calming music)
- This is the oldest church
west of the Mississippi,
built by formerly enslaved Christians,
oral history suggests.
This church was established at about 1853
when Joshua Seale, the sl*ve owner,
and Uncle d*ck Seale got
together and built a church.
Uncle d*ck Seale was
holding church services
under Magnolia trees on
this particular grounds.
Joshua Seale realized that,
hey, let's build a church.
So they got together and built a church.
(calming music)
- We're from San Diego, California.
My family has been in Jasper,
Texas, since the 1800s.
My family, the Seale family,
is the founding family
of Dixie Baptist Church.
My great-great-grandfather,
Richard d*ck Seale,
was a servant of the Seale family.
Joshua Seale helped him
establish the church in 1853.
- I was a preteen when I joined here
and we were baptized in
the creek down the street.
- I used to work as the church secretary.
I still sings in the choir.
I lead three songs.
(calming music)
My favorite song is
"Walking in the Light".
Walking in the light
Beautiful light
Ain't it wonderful how the light shine
- When I come back to Jasper,
I feel connected to my ancestors.
I feel appreciative for the
sacrifices that they made.
I do a lot of family
history, genealogy research
that allows me to feel connected to them.
Walk in Jerusalem just like John
Walk in Jerusalem just like John
- Right now, we are on the
Joshua Seale Plantation.
This may have been the sl*ve quarters
that we're looking at behind
us, these small buildings here.
There are other stories
that it may be some people
who came to work on the
railroad or whatever,
but my impression would be
that this were probably some
refurbished sl*ve quarters.
And I know that there
was another plantation
like right across the
creek, the Indian Creek,
that was a Hadnot plantation,
this was a Seale plantation.
Both of those plantations
kinda came together
after the emancipation,
and most of the people
in this Freedom Colony started
out as Hadnot and Seales.
(birds chirping)
(poignant music)
- We accepted a lot of things
because we didn't know anything different.
And so growing up to me was a happy time
until as I got older and I
realized different things
and different ways that
other people were living,
and different things that
had happened in the past
to my relatives, then the
more I learned about that
then I wasn't as happy as
I was when I was younger
and didn't know anything.
(poignant music)
- It wasn't easy for us
to be where we are today
in this world.
There was a lot of trials and tribulations
that the people in this
particular community
had to deal with.
After sl*very and emancipation,
most of the people that stuck around
ended up doing sharecropping.
And sharecropping was
almost as bad as sl*very.
- All I know is my father was a,
well, it was just like sl*ve,
I'm gonna tell it like it is.
He had to come from up
in Tennessee with the WPA
and he never went back.
- I lived Jim Crow, so I understood
where my place was supposed to be
according to who was making the decision.
So I just kinda deescalated
things rather than escalate 'em.
And when I went into the
military, it was the same thing.
I mean it was just like it
was living in Jasper, Texas.
So there was a lot of situations
that I was involved in in the military
that I could have made
a real big issue out of.
But my upbringing taught me
to deescalate rather than incite.
- There was a time right
there at the post office,
we couldn't drink out of the ones
that you all drinking from.
We had one for ourselves.
So we had to sit well in the
back, I'll tell you right now.
But I'm gonna tell it like it is.
We couldn't do, separate restrooms.
We couldn't go in and we
had to go in our restroom.
- We could drive up and down this road.
We are way out here in the community,
rural community, right?
And highway patrol was just
running in behind ya, you know,
just to pull you over to see
if you going 42 miles an hour
in a 41 mile an hour zone.
And you're pulled over and
you're going to get a ticket.
And to me, it was just, I don't
know, it was just ignorance
in what I thought it
was, it was ignorance.
But we got through all of that,
and we ended up in a better place.
- The pain is easing down a whole lot.
People be moving on with life here
and trying to do good in the city.
We don't want no more racism.
- I know that it brought
Jasper closer together.
We might be a bit divided now,
but after the James Byrd incident,
it brought us close together.
I know that it did.
- It must be getting better.
(calming music)
'Cause they're beginning
to come to your house
and sit down and talk to you.
They used to didn't do that.
- President Clinton, he put me up,
I had a phone straight to the White House
and he would call, and Reno,
they kept up with it.
That encouraged me because
they was seeing the things
was gon' be carried out.
(poignant music)
The grave got took three
times after he got k*lled,
but it's finally settled down.
I had to fix that grave three times.
They went there, and tore
it up, and left a sign
that said the Ku Klux Klan's been here.
(poignant music)
That's why a fence around it now.
I come through it with
the helps of the Lord.
You just can't bear down
in your sorrow and grief.
I just turned it over to the Lord.
I got a letter today from some,
in the wishes of my son, I
still get all kinds of letters.
They send me checks too, and
flowers to go on his grave
all the way off over in England.
(poignant music)
He's in the textbooks.
And they got a hate crime named after him.
So that helped me to have a little hope
that something good come out of it.
But it still hurts.
(poignant music)
(upbeat music)
(Reverend John and hairdresser chattering)
- No, I hadn't been
there, but you know what?
I ain't was about to hit, they were,
I think he was Isaiah was gonna
send us over there to work.
- I'm Reverend John D. Hardin,
Pastor of the Mount Olive Baptist Church.
I've been here for 32 years.
I came here in 1976 and brother
Jordan was a deacon here.
In fact, he took the
pictures of our wedding.
We married in 1955.
I think one of the better
attributes that he had to me
was that he was a great teacher
and he taught his men's class,
very, very astute in his studying
and he knew exactly what
he was teaching about
Mr. Jordan helped people
in any way that he could,
he wouldn't mind helping.
We need more people like
that even in our world today
that's willing and ready to help.
He did it more or less for the community,
I'm sure right now, if you were to check
some of 'em still owe him for pictures
that he took years back.
(upbeat music)
- [Rev Kenneth] Anything
in the Black community
that was worthwhile and you
wanted to have memories of it,
you would call Mr. Jordan.
He also would take
pictures of school events,
church events, bible school.
- Mr. Jordan would take pictures
of anything that he felt
that the community would
enjoy as well as he himself,
and his wife, and family would enjoy.
He also enjoyed taking
pictures of baseball
and in particular, the Jasper Steers.
Jasper Steers started as a
minor team in the early '40s
and when the Steers started playing,
everyone wanted to be a part
of that particular ball club,
which was the most popular
thing in Jasper at that time.
I played third base and
served as a utility player.
I knew Mr. Jordan for
approximately 40 years.
He became my barber once he moved down
to the Jasper Steers area.
- My brother and I, we
would walk from home
to the barber shop to get our hair cut.
I remember it was every two weeks.
As I grew older, I guess you
might say I became a teenager,
a different hairstyle came
out called the crew cut,
I think it was.
I wanted that new hairstyle.
I said, Mr. Jordan, can
you give me the crew cut?
He said, have you talked
with your mother about this?
I said, no, sir.
He said, well, I'm gonna
continue to cut your hair
the way she has asked me to cut it.
That's the way Mr. Jordan was.
Even after I had graduated
from high school,
when I went into the service,
when I would come home,
I'd always go to Mr.
Jordan to get me a haircut
because I think he was the
best barber in East Texas.
(gentle music)
- Freedman's Cemetery in
Dallas for me is such a message
to the future and the past.
Freedman's Cemetery is a
historical burial ground
for formerly enslaved Africans.
Many bodies were removed,
but many are still there.
Being here in Freedman's
Cemetery means to me
that the spirit of all
ancestors, not just mine,
but particularly ancestors of
the African American culture,
have not been forgotten.
Yes, the symbols are not here,
the headstones and all of
that, they're all gone,
but the spirit of those
individuals is here.
(cars whooshing)
I pass here all the time
as thousands of people do, in traffic,
but I kind of glance
over, and I think of peace
even though there was such
turmoil, and hurt, and pain,
but yet now this location,
this ground of earth
makes me think of peace, hopefully rest.
When we talk about heritage,
and history, and culture,
there is a philosophy and
opinion that only the people
of that culture can tell it.
Yes, they need to, but
history needs to be told
by whoever's gonna tell it.
Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round
Turn me round, turn me round
Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round
Keep on walking, keep on talking
Marching toward freedom land
I love music, and I have a
strong musical background,
and I appreciate the songs
that have told messages of culture.
Getting through these difficult times,
I always turn to music.
Music is a salve on wounds.
Music gives us an outlet for hope
that we should never give up
and we need to pass it
on to the new generation.
Savior
Savior
Hear my humble cry
And while on others Thou art calling
Do not pass me by
Here, Rattler
Here, Rattler, here, here
Here, Rattler
Here, Rattler, here
Oh, Big Foot Rock is surely gone
Here, Rattler, here
Oh, Big Foot Rock is surely gone
Here, Rattler, here
(upbeat jazz music)
- [Russel] I think it was 1939,
I got around Marshall, Texas,
and began to photograph
several of the projects there,
and the others were
incidental as we came along.
- There's an Anglo photographer
by the name of Russell Lee.
He would go among the African descendants
and photograph their everyday life,
which we would not ordinarily see.
You might hear it in family stories,
but to actually see images of it.
(upbeat jazz music)
When you side him with Alonzo Jordan
who was a Black photographer,
you get the two dynamics of life.
Russell Lee showed the everyday life,
which wasn't always
pretty, but it was real,
and it captured a period of society
and of life that we
might not have gathered.
Jordan showed kind of what
Black photographers did,
church life, weddings,
graduations, community gatherings,
that sort of thing.
But just that every day
with the sweat and the toil,
the dirt on your hands, the
family sitting on the porch.
Those images had value and
when you put the two together,
they show both sides
of the Black existence.
(upbeat jazz music)
- My name is Marla Smith
and Alonzo Jordan was my grandfather.
To all the grandkids, he was known as Papou
and we enjoyed being around him,
we enjoyed watching him taking photos.
(vibrant music)
He would go to the different schools,
and the kids would get so excited
when it was time to take school pictures,
and we enjoyed watching
him take those photos.
And he'd always have this
little saying that he would say
before he'd get ready
to snap that picture,
he'd always say, okay, get set, ready.
And everybody would get so excited
because we knew we had to be
at attention and in position,
and we enjoyed being around.
He was such a fun person.
He'd always make those
little faces at the kids
or he'd always hold his
hands up over the camera
and make little signs with his hand.
And kids always enjoyed that
because they were excited
to get their pictures made.
It wasn't often that we'd
get to go to the supermarkets
or to the discount centers
and have photos made.
So he did that for us, and that
was an exciting time for us
to spend with him.
(calming country music)
- I am Emma Sharp Adams,
the godchild of Alonzo and Helen Jordan.
And I grew up around the barber shop
and photography shop,
used to just crawl around
they'd tell me when I was a little tot.
And he took pictures of my family
from childhood on up till his death,
and I used to get a kick
out of listening to him
in the darkroom talking to the pictures.
You would swear that he was in there
talking to a person live
and he had to get everything just perfect.
If there was a strand
of hair out of place,
he had to get it fixed.
- I went with him everywhere he went
so that people was dressed,
the colors and everything
like that was on them straight.
Give 'em a mirror and see
if they were satisfied
with their appearance.
- Everything had to be exact.
The lighting had to be exact,
the background had to be exact.
It would take him almost 30 minutes
before he would snap the picture.
At the weddings, everyone
had to be in order
before he would take the picture.
He was just that kind of photographer
who wanted to have the best picture.
And because of his conscientious
way of doing things,
he became popular all over East Texas.
And one thing about the pictures,
they all were what I would
call perfect pictures.
- I admired him for the motivation
that he put into becoming a photographer
because he taught himself.
He studied a lot, he read a lot.
So he was very interested
in applying himself
to do the good work.
(gentle music)
- I met Mr. Jordan early in
life when I was in high school.
He was a great photographer
and he visited many of the schools
and took school pictures each year.
Mr. Jordan took many wedding pictures.
He came down to Buna where I lived
and took my wedding pictures.
And we were very pleased with 'em.
Not very many pictures was done
that you were not pleased with 'em
because he made sure that the
subject that he was taking
was in the perfect position
that they needed to be
so that the pictures would
come out beautifully.
He was a very kind person,
but he was very firm
and made sure that you
understood what he wanted
was what he needed to get a good picture.
- He would've loved the digital photos.
Now, being able to take
a picture instantly
and you can connect it to
your TV and see it right then,
or even edit it right then,
he would have loved that.
(gentle music)
- There's a political movement right now
in the United States to wipe
out, to erase cultural history,
particularly from my vantage point,
African American history,
critical race theory,
wokeness, all of that.
Such hateful resentment.
But people like the African
American descendants
in small towns like Jasper,
they have stepped forward
to preserve their history, rich history
that very few people know
about that needs to be told.
They've opened museums
and things like that
to really preserve that history.
That's important.
That's key.
Because without that type of
action, history will be erased,
and has been erased.
And that's a diabolical thing to happen,
to erase history that
somebody fought so hard
to make happen.
- Without the past, how do
we even examine the present,
let alone think about a future?
We go back to our past,
we tell our history.
And as I say, we gotta tell
it all and tell it well.
All the pain, all the
sorrow, all the suffering,
all those things that make
up what our past has been
in this country, will help
us, I think, figure out
where we're going in this country.
And I'd hate to say right now
is that we have people now ready to erase
everything they consider to
be negative in our history.
Everything they consider to
be ashamed of in our history.
No, you don't erase it.
You don't try to amend it, you tell it
because that will inform us
even about our present right now.
It is a shame what is happening
in the country as I speak,
that people who would
dare want to tear down
any semblance of the black man's struggle,
the red man's struggle,
the brown man's struggle
in this country.
No, we tell it and you
tell how they overcame.
What a difficult past they went through,
that I went through.
You know, I'm still standing.
But I tell you what, you
know, I don't have long
to stay here as the old folk used to say,
but I want it for my child,
I want it for those
children who come after me
to know the truth about the
history of their country.
It's a long John
It's a long John
He's a long gone
He's a long gone
Like a turkey through the corn
Like a turkey through the corn
Through the long corn
Through the long corn
Well, my John said
Well, my John said
In the ten chap ten
In the ten chap ten
If a man die
If a man die
He will live again
He will live again
Well, they crucified Jesus
Well, they crucified Jesus
And they nailed him to the cross
And they nailed him to the cross
Sister Mary cried
Sister Mary cried
My child is lost
My child is lost
Well, long John
He's long gone
He's long gone
He's long gone
He's long gone
He's long gone
Mister John, John
Mister John, John
Old Big-eye John
Old Big-eye John
Storm is almost gone
Storm is almost gone
I can see the sun peeping
through the clouds
The storm is almost gone
The storm is almost gone
Storm is almost gone
I can see the sun peeping
through the clouds
Storm is almost gone
- Wow, look at this.
You know this is a photo of
the young James Byrd Jr.,
it takes my breath away,
but I look at the promise
in that young face,
those eyes and that subtle smile,
and I think about the
future he could have had.
This rips my heart, this rips my heart.
But this picture would not
be here had it not been
for Alonzo Jordan, the
photographer who took it.
This shows the value of photography.
Oh, the horror, the horror of it,
to look at the promise of this young man.
(poignant music)
- It's very important to remember,
but it's not good to just dwell on it.
I don't want to dwell on it
'cause if you do, it'll eat
you up, it'll consume you.
I just don't forget it.
If you do, it can happen again.
Whatever you throw behind you,
can come up in front of you
again if you don't watch it.
So we gotta stay vigilant.
And hope to God it doesn't happen anymore.
But we can't let it eat us up though.
(poignant music)
- Jasper just has grown so much now.
We all are together, a community of people
working together,
that's what I like about it.
And you can't do nothing all by yourself.
Somebody got to help you.
That's what I say.
Somebody's got to help you.
(bright gentle music)
- We decide we would set
it up in remembrance of my son
and try to educate.
We give scholarships to the
students what deserves it.
And most of the time
where this hate come from
is through ignorance and
they ain't been taught.
So we try our best to help those
that wanna go to college
to get an education.
Lots of peoples really
don't know any better.
If they educate theyself
and then consider a feeling
of others, it would help 'em.
(bright gentle music)
And then I want to see something
good come outta his death.
And long as I can help
anybody, you get a release.
Seems like your living won't be in vain
if you could help somebody.
(bright gentle music)
(vibrant music)
- The power to overcome
is, it's wonderful.
I mean, you can see it
from what's going on
with the Juneteenth with my dad,
and Fred over at the CFHPA,
and my cousin now is
president over there now,
and she's my age.
(vibrant music)
Younger people are coming up
to show that Jasper's
more than James Byrd.
(vibrant music)
Even my daughter was just telling me today
that she tells people that
her family's from Jasper
and they always say, oh,
you don't wanna go there
that guy was k*lled there.
And she's looking at them saying, no,
my family is from there, you know?
And so she has to explain to them
that Jasper's bigger than that.
And that's what's really important,
we want a better legacy for Jasper.
- [Announcer] 35, 16, 26, and 33.
(audience member applauding)
Alright, first bingo.
- I have this belief.
The Martin Luther Kings
and the Malcolm Xs and all,
they did wonderful jobs
doing what they were
doing to get recognition
and stuff like that.
And they're recognized.
But I have this thing
about hometown folks.
I feel like they ought to be recognized.
And so that's what we're trying to do now.
- Local communities have
a special responsibility
to tell their story.
And so what you have had is
that communities like Jasper
where people have established museums,
they have gone back and
reclaimed their history.
They're proud of that school,
they're proud of those situations
that help make them who they are today,
that help them to overcome
that bad experience
that the world will never forget.
They're there to tell their story.
(vibrant music)
- My uncle's in that museum.
- Who is that?
- MacArthur Ray Smith.
- He sure is.
(resident laughing)
Won't you ring O hammer
Hammer ring
Won't you ring O hammer
Hammer ring
Broke the handle on my hammer
Hammer ring
Broke the handle on my hammer
Hammer ring
Got to hammerin' in the Bible
Hammer ring
Got to hammerin' in the Bible
Hammer ring
Won't you ring, old hammer
Hammer ring
Won't you ring, old hammer
Hammer ring
Gotta talk about Noah
Hammer ring
Gotta talk about Noah
Hammer ring
Well, God told Noah
Hammer ring
Well, God told Noah
Hammer ring
You is a-goin' in the timber
Hammer ring
You is a-goin' in the timber
Hammer ring
You argue some Bible
Hammer ring
You argue some Bible
Hammer ring
O ring, old hammer
Hammer ring
O ring, old hammer
Hammer ring
Well, Noah got worried
Hammer ring
Well, Noah got worried
Hammer ring
What you want with the timber
Hammer ring
What you want with the timber
Hammer ring
Won't you build me a ark, sir
Hammer ring
Won't you build me a ark, sir
Hammer ring
Won't you ring, old hammer
Hammer ring
Won't you ring, old hammer
Hammer ring
Well, Noah asked God, sir
Hammer ring
Well, Noah asked God, sir
Hammer ring
How high do you want it
Hammer ring
How high do you want it
Hammer ring
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Quiet Voices in a Noisy World (2025)
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