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Thousands of demonstrators descended on Jena, La., Thursday from across the country for what Al Sharpton called the beginning of the 21st century's civil rights movement.
The demonstration prompted change and awareness, that's for sure. In the wake of it:
- A countless number of those who could not make it to the rally from across the country wore black in solidarity with the Jena demonstrators.
- President Bush made his first remarks regarding the case. "The events in Louisiana have saddened me." he said. "And I understand the emotions. The Justice Department and the FBI are monitoring the situation down there. And all of us in America want there to be, you know, fairness when it comes to justice."
- The story is being played around the world, from the BBC in England to Al Jazeera.
The six black teenagers who have become known as the Jena Six were first charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate after nooses were hung from a tree at school. Despite their age, all but one young man was also charged as an adult.
Marchers on Thursday carried signs that said "Praise Mychal Bell," the only teen of the Jena Six who remains jailed.
After being convicted by an all-white jury, Bell was the last to have his conviction of aggravated assault overturned by a Louisiana appeals court last week. They ruled that he shouldn't have been tried as an adult. He will now be tried as a juvenile and the others still await their court dates.
Sharpton said before the rally, "Don't act like we coming to start trouble. We're coming to stop trouble."
Reports so far say that the demonstration, which shut down the school and all the businesses in the town of 3,000, was big and peaceful. No trouble.
Marchers chanted "Free the Jena Six" and "No Justice, No Peace," pointing to the case as yet another example of Southern legal injustice. All of the marchers on Thursday want ALL charges against all six dropped completely.
The Jena Six teens found themselves in an unimaginable situation last year when nooses where hung from a tree on their high school campus, a powerful sign of lynching and racism. Fights where followed by arrests, but the white teens who hung the nooses were not charged with a crime.
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By: marietta on 9/21/2007 6:00PM
We were so proud of our black sisters and brothers. The unity and peace of all the blacks in attendance and no arrest. Our people are satting a great standard. Dont care about the racist comments on this or any site about the Jena Six. They hate it when Blacks come together and are not fighting each other.That mentalty from slavery where we were taught to pit against each other.. Every Black and every person of any color, much love to every one. We did not attend but we organized buses an called and worked in our area with the media.Dont let people on this site provoke you with there words.A good image of Blacks were protrayed in that March.
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By: marietta on 9/21/2007 6:23PM
We need to March again in Jena soon, that the prosecuter get the message all of the charges against Mychal Bell were overturned . Charge him as a Juvenille if thats the plan and release him to his parents or let him go.Young people have fights. The reporter from CNN yesterday was white, that went to talk to the family of the people accused of hanging the nooses in Jena. Why did two big men come out with a shot gun and tell her to get away. Why not state there are still legal issues and we dont want to discuss the case. With the media and the cameras there and they would act like that.Is that the behavior for sensible innocent victims.
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By: Will Jones on 9/21/2007 6:38PM
As I've been watching and reading the coverage... the long-awaited coverage... of the Jena Six situation, I cannot help but feel angered at my former profession, the "media".
First, it's covered this travesty in Louisiana far too little, and covered Paris, Lindsey, Brittney, and OJ far too much... in my humble opinion.
Now, when the "media" does cover the marches and vigils... and NOT the story itself, it is leaving out some crucial facts to the story.
Please read these excerpts from the following Chicago Tribune story, dated May 20, 2007. And, note the facts I put in bold type that the "media" is now evading, overlooking, and/or simply leaving out to, in my humble opinion, "craft" the essence of the story of the Jena Six:
Racial Demons Rear Heads
Howard Witt
hwitt@tribune.com
Senior Tribune Correspondent
reposted from thechicagotribune.com
…One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard.
The tree was on the side of the campus that, by long-standing tradition, had always been claimed by white students, who make up more than 80 percent of the 460 students. But a few of the school's 85 black students had decided to challenge the accepted state of things and asked school administrators if they, too, could sit beneath the tree's cooling shade.
"Sit wherever you want," school officials told them. The next day, the nooses were hanging from the branches.
African-American students and their parents were outraged and intimidated by the display, which instantly summoned memories of the mob lynchings that once terrorized blacks across the American South. Three white students were quickly identified as being responsible, and the high school principal recommended that they be expelled.
But Jena's white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, ruled that the nooses were just a youthful stunt and suspended the students for three days, angering blacks who felt harsher punishments were justified.
"Adolescents play pranks," said Breithaupt, the superintendent of the LaSalle Parish school system. "I don't think it was a threat against anybody."
Yet it was after the noose incident that the violent, racially charged events that are still convulsing Jena began.
First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.
Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim -- allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks -- was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.
But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.
To the defendants, their families and civil rights groups that have examined the events, the attempted murder charges brought by a white prosecutor are excessive and part of a pattern of uneven justice in the town.
The critics note, for example, that the white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasn't charged with any crime at all. But the three black youths in that incident were arrested and accused of aggravated battery and theft after they wrestled the weapon from the man -- in self-defense, they said.
Bailey, 17, is caught up in several of the Jena incidents, as both a victim and alleged perpetrator. He was the black student who was beaten at the party, and he was among the students arrested for allegedly grabbing the shotgun from the man at the convenience store. And he's one of the six students charged with attempted murder for the Dec. 4 attack.
The district attorney declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story. But other white leaders insist there are no racial tensions in the community, which is 85 percent white and 12 percent black.
"Jena is a place that's moving in the right direction," said Mayor Murphy McMillan. "Race is not a major local issue. It's not a factor in the local people's lives."
Still others, however, acknowledge troubling racial undercurrents in a town where only 16 years ago white voters cast most of their ballots for David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor.
And the troubles at the high school are not over yet.
On May 10, police arrested Justin Barker, 17, the white victim of the Dec. 4 beating. He was alleged to have a rifle loaded with 13 bullets stashed behind the seat of his pickup truck parked in the school lot. Barker told police he had forgotten it was there and had no intention of using it.
PLEASE, make sure that you get the word out... ALL OF THE WORD OUT... to people who need to know the TRUTH.
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By: Will Jones on 9/21/2007 6:39PM
As I've been watching and reading the coverage... the long-awaited coverage... of the Jena Six situation, I cannot help but feel angered at my former profession, the "media".
First, it's covered this travesty in Louisiana far too little, and covered Paris, Lindsey, Brittney, and OJ far too much... in my humble opinion.
Now, when the "media" does cover the marches and vigils... and NOT the story itself, it is leaving out some crucial facts to the story.
Please read these excerpts from the following Chicago Tribune story, dated May 20, 2007. And, note the facts I put in bold type that the "media" is now evading, overlooking, and/or simply leaving out to, in my humble opinion, "craft" the essence of the story of the Jena Six:
Racial Demons Rear Heads
Howard Witt
hwitt@tribune.com
Senior Tribune Correspondent
reposted from thechicagotribune.com
…One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard.
The tree was on the side of the campus that, by long-standing tradition, had always been claimed by white students, who make up more than 80 percent of the 460 students. But a few of the school's 85 black students had decided to challenge the accepted state of things and asked school administrators if they, too, could sit beneath the tree's cooling shade.
"Sit wherever you want," school officials told them. The next day, the nooses were hanging from the branches.
African-American students and their parents were outraged and intimidated by the display, which instantly summoned memories of the mob lynchings that once terrorized blacks across the American South. Three white students were quickly identified as being responsible, and the high school principal recommended that they be expelled.
But Jena's white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, ruled that the nooses were just a youthful stunt and suspended the students for three days, angering blacks who felt harsher punishments were justified.
"Adolescents play pranks," said Breithaupt, the superintendent of the LaSalle Parish school system. "I don't think it was a threat against anybody."
Yet it was after the noose incident that the violent, racially charged events that are still convulsing Jena began.
First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.
Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim -- allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks -- was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.
But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.
To the defendants, their families and civil rights groups that have examined the events, the attempted murder charges brought by a white prosecutor are excessive and part of a pattern of uneven justice in the town.
The critics note, for example, that the white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasn't charged with any crime at all. But the three black youths in that incident were arrested and accused of aggravated battery and theft after they wrestled the weapon from the man -- in self-defense, they said.
Bailey, 17, is caught up in several of the Jena incidents, as both a victim and alleged perpetrator. He was the black student who was beaten at the party, and he was among the students arrested for allegedly grabbing the shotgun from the man at the convenience store. And he's one of the six students charged with attempted murder for the Dec. 4 attack.
The district attorney declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story. But other white leaders insist there are no racial tensions in the community, which is 85 percent white and 12 percent black.
"Jena is a place that's moving in the right direction," said Mayor Murphy McMillan. "Race is not a major local issue. It's not a factor in the local people's lives."
Still others, however, acknowledge troubling racial undercurrents in a town where only 16 years ago white voters cast most of their ballots for David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor.
And the troubles at the high school are not over yet.
On May 10, police arrested Justin Barker, 17, the white victim of the Dec. 4 beating. He was alleged to have a rifle loaded with 13 bullets stashed behind the seat of his pickup truck parked in the school lot. Barker told police he had forgotten it was there and had no intention of using it.
PLEASE, make sure that you get the word out... ALL OF THE WORD OUT... to people who need to know the TRUTH.
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By: Johnny Duncan on 9/21/2007 8:41PM
JENA 6: THE NEXT PHASE
I traveled to Jena from Amite, Louisiana on September 20, 2007 with two of my young, black male proteges. We arrived around 0400 Thursday morning There were some positive lessons in this gathering, as well as some negative ones. Clearly, a dichotomy existed as was evident by two seperate marches at different times.
We waited at the baseball fields for hours until a program began, presided over by Louisiana State Conference NAACP President, Ernest Johnson. The program was much too long, with too many speakers--some berating black men--negligent of the fact that the black men in attendance were not the complacent ones who sagg. Much play was given to the heads of some of the black Greeks, and various branches of the NAACP. It looked like an NAACP pep rally. Charles Steele (whom I recall from the 1970'2 in Alabama), who succeeded Joseph Lowery in the SCLC--also delivered a message.
The best speech was presented by the young brother from MTV who welcomed the saggin brothers and anyone who had something positive to offer to the movement. This was a milestone, in that the older middle class speakers sought to bash much of the younger generation. And, the NAACP and the SCLC wonder why they have alienated so many young black men.
It was not comfortable standing in high 80 degree weather for two plus hours, and ten having to walk two miles to the court house. It was quite clear that few of the organizers had ever participated in mass civil rights marches before. They didn't even know the words to at leat two civil rights songs that Dr. King andf others sang. The absence of other hymns was conspicious. I said all that to say this.
Sharpton, Jackson, Waters, Baisden, Johnson, King III, Smiley, Nagin, Steele, and the other celebrities gave elegant speeches. The establishment was so impressed, that bond was denied to Michael Bell at a subsequent bond hearing. The protest by thousands of black and white supporters only HARDENED PHAROAH'S HEART! NOW WHAT?
It is time to take the JENA 6 to the next level in order to achieve the desired end.
(to be continued)
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By: sha on 9/21/2007 9:21PM
watts is a white man pretending to be black---he's ignorant...
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By: Mary on 9/21/2007 9:56PM
Doug Watts sound like a white man name, and maybe he is. So let us go on and write something positive about the march forget about him. WE have the parton let run your neck of the race with love and grace.
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By: PAT on 9/21/2007 10:31PM
What's worse- calling ourselves Nigga's, Bitches and Ho's or seeing a noose hanging on a tree in Jena and assuming it's meant for us (Black people)and not Jesse James (wild west). NOOSES WERE USED IN MORE THAN ONE PERIODIN HISTORY! But without knowing OUR history, or theirs, we wouldn't know that little known history fact. IF OUR KIDS KNEW THEIR HISTORY, THEY'D REACT TO FACT, NOT SYMBOLISM.
If we were really smart, we'd take 500 buses INTO OUR OWN Black community and protest the following:
- social ambulance chasers, particularly Jesse and Al- Where the hell were you when the Jena 6 initially entered the judicial system during? You are later than Juneteenth on this one! Did anyone bother to mentor these boys after their first, second or third offense? Where the hell are their daddies?
-the lack of Black mentors in the Black community- How many of the people on those 500 buses have ever volunteered their time tutoring a Black child, forming a youth group or tucking their own kids in bed, as opposed to going to the club? How many paid their child support before boarding the bus?
- unprotected sex in the Black community and the rise of AIDs, especially amongst Black women who are so desperate for any level of love that we sleep with anything that can get it up.
- baby daddies not paying child support or regularly seeing their children.
-unemployed Black men and the stupid sistas that enable, support and reproduce them. You'll take a bus to Jena but you won't catch the bus to get or keep a job.
- Grandmothers under 40 who see nothing wrong with their 20 year old daughter dropping off three babies by three different men. Can we teach morals, people!
- the removal of all Black businesses in the Black Community. We treat Asians better than ourselves. Your hair weave money is paying their mortgages, and they do not live in the Black community. Have you ever seen an Asian in the Black community after dark. You ever had a Asian Trick-or Treater, girl scout or boy scout at your door?
-the lack of computers and resources in Black schools, in addition to Black teachers who just don't give a damn.What happened to the Black teachers who cared? Why aren't they protesting?
- why foreigners can pass standardized tests (SAT, ACT, TAKS, etc.) 5 to 1 over Black youth. Most Asians and Hispanics who pass the exams have spoken English less than 10 years. Heck, 300 years after we got off the boat, we still cannot speak proper English.
-saggin' pants, overflowing busts, tattoos and our general lack of self-respect. GHETTO IS NOT FABULOUS!
WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE! LET'S MARCH TO GET BETTER SCHOOLS, A BETTER JUDICIAL SYSTEM, BETTER HOUSING, BETTER ELDER CARE, BETTER SCORES ON COLLEGE ENTRANCE EXAMS, MORE BLACK BUSINESSES IN OUR COMMUNITIES, MORE MENTORS, BETTER PARENTING SKILLS, MORE SELF-CONTROL WHEN THE BOOTY CALL IS MADE, BETTER PARTNERS IN OUR RELATIONSHIPS AND MORE SELF-RESPECT IN OUR SPEECH, APPEARANCE AND BEHAVIOR.
LET'S PROTEST THE FACT THAT WE HAVE NO CLUE ABOUT THE ISSUES WE SHOULD BE PROTESTING! We need to cleanup our act and maybe the world will respect us and the Jena incidents will go away!!!
Oh, by the way, did Jesse or Al bother to invite you to dinner tonight? The only thing scarcer than an Asian in the Black community after dark, is a Black "leader".
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By: Ms. Grant on 9/21/2007 10:46PM
As a Single Parent I just don't understand what is really going on???? I live in Hartford,Ct which is up North. The "Laws" up North are totaly diffrent then down South. Alot of things that are taken lightly Down South "Ain't gonna fly" up here.
Right is right and wrong is wrong!!
2 wrongs don't make it right no matter what the color of ur skin is or your race. But in this case as a female all what our 4 father's did 2 make a diffrence...... "History is just replaying it's self but in a diffrent way."
The question which we all need 2 be worried about is what will be the final end result???? And right now if that younge man dose time in jail it is going 2 be the start of a serious issues all over the country....
And if the younge man dose get out of Jail it will cause serious damage with all races all over the world!!!
We are in some serious times and the proper actions need to be taken.....
I have a daughter in the 8th grade and she has keep up on this topic since day #1 and she will go back into her History books and the Questions of what happend back b 4 i was born to what is going on right now I just don't know how 2 even answer her..... The only thing i can do and say is 2 let my child know that not because we don't see things like this at home dosen't mean that it is not going on around the world....
But it is not what was done that is the problem is how the matter was delt with is the "BIG ISSUE" at hand and what can be done to correct it......
Agree 2 disagree
Ms. Grant
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By: Ipress on 9/22/2007 3:40AM
Howdi, you are right name calling does not justify physical violence, but cornering my child, getting in her face, while calling her these names does. So until this happens to YOUR child, please don't judge the way I raise mine. My post read, that I tell my kids not to start fights, BUT if they feel threatened....to fight their way out. My child is far from violent, that was 5 yrs ago, and she is a stronger person because of it. We talk often, that's the key communication. So you can get off of that soapbox of yours.
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