JASPER — Lunch time at an all-you-can-eat cafe here, and the waiting line stretched out the door.

When a waitress asked if anyone was eating alone, a man raised his hand slightly and was led to an occupied table. He didn’t mind, and the two men already there didn't either. They stood up and shook his hand as he joined them.

They didn’t know each other well, it appeared, and these three men — two white, the newcomer black — ate catfish and fried okra and drank tall glasses of iced tea.

No one gave them a second look. It was just lunch.

Contrary to what locals suspect outsiders think, there is not some real and violent line drawn through this town, where blacks stay on one side and whites on the other, city and county officials say. This city’s problems are no different — nor greater — than in any other small town.

Even with the recent arrival of 19-year-old James Roesch, the leader of a nationwide Ku Klux Klan group, folks here expect to pay no mind. They’re getting through the bad times and looking ahead.

"If we can overcome what happened in the past, we can overcome this thing," said police Chief Stanley Christopher, reacting to the news that Jasper is now the national "headquarters" of the Knights of the White Kamellia, the second largest Klan group in the country. "But the only way we can do it is by coming together."

James Byrd Jr.’s murder was one of the most grisly hate crimes in Texas history.

After the murder, the New Black Panthers and members of several Ku Klux Klan groups came to Jasper to absorb the media attention that flooded the timber town of about 8,000.

But local officials asked residents to stay away. And they did. So with a Klan presence here once again, city and county officials hope residents react the same way.

"The citizens in our county made their feelings known during