The result is "Two Towns of Jasper," an eye-opening and thought-provoking 90-minute film that will air at 9pm today on PBS (KQED-Ch. 9) as the 15th-season premiere of the documentary series "P.O.V." The film recounts the horrific elements of Byrd's murder and the trials and convictions of the three killers, John King, Lawrence Brewer, and Shawn Berry.

But the film's power comes in its interviews, which reveal that racism still exists in Jasper, a small two n northeast of Houston. It may be a nuanced form of racism, but it is racism nonetheless.

"He (Byrd) should be judged by the way he was, not by the way he died," says one of the white men interviewed, a member of the town's "Bubbas in Training" breakfast club.

"(This crime) brings things to light," says one of the black women interviewed, a hairstylist. "Like, why there only one black man working at the bank."

Renee Mullins, Byrd's daughter, doesn't blame white people for what happened to her father. She blames "the three people that done it." But she also believes the crime is "a wake-up call for America."

The film opens matter-of-factly, focusing on the considerable effort by Rowles and other authorities to apprehend the killers. It shows a town that's 45 percent black, that has a black mayor and two black City Council members.

But it also shows townspeople mistrustful of each other.

Some whites express anger over the negative attention the crime has brought to Jasper. They feel the need to point out that Byrd liked his liquor and that he was no saint.

Some of the town's African Americans believe the killing is the another example in a long history of racist incidents that reveal attitudes pervasive among portions of the white community.

The film shows a town deadened to what constitutes racism. One of the "Bubbas" says he was raised using the "N" word and still does. It "wasn't meant derogatory," he says. "I haven't been able to come to grips" with the word being unacceptable.

It shows a town with two cemeteries, one for whites, one for blacks, separated by a white picket fence. It shows the fence coming down in the wake of what happened to Byrd and the men who killed him.

"But what does that really prove?" asks a patron of Unav's Beauty Salon, where black woman get their hair done. Blacks are still buried on one side, whites on the other, she says.

"Two Towns" also shines a light on the filmmakers' attitudes towards race.

"Whitney and I spent a lot of time talking about the Byrd murder and how a film might excavate its deeper meaning," said Marco Williams. "We were both horrified, of course, but the more we talked, the more we experienced moments where our viewpoints diverged. We realized the divergences were rooted in our different racial experiences. That was the germ for the approach."

"Marco and I have known each other for 23 years," said Dow. "We went to the same high school, went to the same type of (Ivy League) university. Marco actually lived in my house when he was at school.

I went into this reject a little naively, thinking it wouldn't really affect our relationship, that our similarities, based on our shared history, trumped our differences on race.

"And I came out of it recognizing that no matter what shared history we have, the different experiences we have living in America - Marco as a black man, me as a white man - are far more profound than any similarities."

"I think we grew to fully recognize how profound the difference between black and white is," said Williams.

"Race is an unbridgable divide in the United States, in my opinion," said Williams.

"It's unbridgable if people do not work to build those bridges. Part of the work necessary to build those bridges is dialogue," and he hopes the film sparks that.

The film has played movie festivals over the past year, and it was shown in advance to the people who were interviewed, including members of Byrd's family.

Two of those interviewed are the Rev. Ray Charles Lewis, a jasper minister, and Guy James Gray Jr., the district attorney who prosecuted the three men who were found guilty in the case. (King and Brewer received the death penalty, while Berry got a life sentence.) Both men offered their opinion of the film.

"I thought it was real good," said Gray. "To be perfectly honest, when these guys came to town, they're Yankees to begin with. They've got a black guy out filming blacks and a white guy out filming whites, and they come out with a film called 'Two Towns of Jasper.' That sound like a film that's going to be divisive. But I looked at the film, and I think they hit the truth. I think they struck a nerve."

"Some whites are very sensitive to what happened," said Lewis, "and some were honest about how they really felt. We went to a great effort to trying to prove to the world that we were together: the prayer vigil, the taking down of the (cemetery) fence, all that. Of course, the taking down of the fence didn't have any real meaning to me."

But has there been any meaningful change since the filmmakers left?

"To me, no," said Lewis. "As a black community leader, I think everything went back to the norm. Everything is still segregated. Blacks live on one side of the community, whites on the other."