Gary L. Bledsoe, president of the Texas N.A.A.C.P., has asked the United States Department of Justice to monitor race relations in Jasper and is preparing to request that authorities in Washington withhold federal financing to Jasper because of what he called racial discrimination in the firing of Mr. Pearson. “Clearly he’s been the victim of a lynch-mob mentality in the area,” Mr. Bledsoe said of Mr. Pearson.

Mr. Bledsoe and black leaders in Jasper said the segregated cemetery was one example of the ways in which many here perpetuate a hostile racial attitude. Several black residents, including one of Mr. Byrd’s relatives, said they feared speaking out against bias in Jasper and in support of Mr. Pearson out of fear of retaliation. A longtime board member of the cemetery, which is not city-owned, said a black family could not bury a loved one in the white section because all of the plots were taken, and the plots had been bought along racial lines.

Mr. Pearson said that throughout his tenure as police chief, he was treated differently because of his race. He said he was cut out of the city budgeting process and was never given the honor of a swearing-in ceremony. He said city officials used a scoring system from the Texas Police Chiefs Association to rank the candidates for the position — a system that he and his lawyer, Cade Bernsen, said had never been used in the past and that was meant to give credence to the claim that he was underqualified.

While still police chief in April, Mr. Pearson filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the city, alleging racial discrimination. “A nightmare,” Mr. Pearson said of his time as police chief. “I feel that I ran the department as best as I could with the support that I had.”

Mr. Hopson, a retired state trooper, said his family ties to Mr. Berry had no bearing on his decision to fire Mr. Pearson. “There’s not a blood relationship nor a legal relationship between Shawn Berry and I,” he said. “He was part of our family when his mother was married to my brother. I personally knew Rodney for many years and I liked him. It’s strictly based on performance. It had nothing to do with race.”

At the cemetery, one fence, the one separating the white and black graves, came down in January 1999, but a different one went up years later. A cast-iron fence surrounds Mr. Byrd’s grave. In 2004, two white teenagers desecrated the grave with racial slurs and knocked over the headstone.