Two Towns of Jasper

Black and white residents of Jasper, Texas react after an African American man was murdered by three white men.

Two towns of jasper 01
Series
POV
Premiere Date
January 22, 2003
Length
90 minutes
Funding Initiative
Open Call
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2002 Pan African Film Festival-Best Documentary
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2002 Double Take Documentary Festival-Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2004 Peabody Awards-George Foster Peabody Award
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2004 duPont Awards-Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award
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    Marco williams filmmaker
    Producer

    Marco Williams

    Marco Williams is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. His directing credits include: Lonnie Holley: The Truth of the Dirt, The Black Fives, The Undocumented, Inside the New Black Panthers; Banished; Freedom Summer; I Sit Where I Want; MLK Boulevard: The Concrete Dream; Two Towns of Jasper; Making Peace: Rebuilding our Communities; In Search of Our Fathers;… Show more and From Harlem to Harvard. His film awards include Guggenheim Fellowship, a George Foster Peabody Award, the Beacon Award, the Alfred I duPont Silver Baton, the Pan African Film Festival Outstanding Documentary Award, the Full Frame Documentary Festival Spectrum Award, and the National Association of Black Journalists First Place Salute to Excellence Award. Show less

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    Dow whitney filmmaker bio
    Producer

    Whitney Dow

    Whitney Dow is an award-winning filmmaker whose directing credits include: Two Towns of Jasper, I Sit Where I Want: The Legacy of Brown v Board of Education, Unfinished Country, and When the Drum Is Beating. His work has been screened and broadcast all over the world and received numerous honors including the Peabody, a Columbia DuPont, Gotham, and Beacon… Show more Awards. Dow¹s producing credits include Freedom Summer, Banished, and The Undocumented, all directed by Marco Williams, and Toots, directed by Kristi Jacobson. Show less

    Other ITVS Films
    Unfinished Country
    When the Drum Is Beating

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    The Film

    In 1998 in Jasper, Texas, James Byrd Jr., a black man, was chained to a pick-up truck and dragged to his death by three white men. The town was forever altered, and the nation woke up to the horror of a modern-day lynching. Two film crews, one black and one white, set out to document the aftermath by following the trials of the local men charged with the crime. The result is an explicit and troubling portrait of race, one that asks how and why a crime like this could have occurred.

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