Here’s a well-done story by Scott Farwell in the Dallas Morning News about the people who journeyed out to Jena. Farwell conveys how much the protest in Jena means to people all over the country. This story allows readers to connect the dots between the hanging of nooses, the irresponsible reaction of local authorities, the attacks by white youth on black youth, and the fight that led to the prosecution of the black youth who became known as the “Jena 6.” Alan Bean of Friends of Justice is also quoted.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/092007dnmetjenasetup.3645e08.html

North Texans marching behind 6 young men in Jena: Concern for black defendants in Louisiana fills Texas buses

8:12 Am on Thursday, September 20, 2007

By Scott Farwell/ The Dallas Morning News

sfarwell@dallasnews.com

More than 1,000 people from North Texas loaded into chartered buses, piled into rental vans and slid behind the wheels of cars Wednesday, joining an overnight caravan of national civil rights protesters expected to overwhelm a two-stoplight Louisiana town today.

Crowds began gathering under a lighted pavilion at Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas a few minutes before 10 p.m. Wednesday.

“You have to take a stand, or evil will prevail,” said the Rev. Earl Bill of Rowlett. “Good men should not stand silent and let injustices rule.”

For many activists, today’s four-mile march and courthouse rally in Jena (pronounced Jee-nuh) is an expression of outrage with a criminal justice system they say is gutting the future of a generation of young black men.

In Texas, nearly one-third of black men in their 20s are in prison or on parole or probation. Nationally, black men are incarcerated more than six times as often as whites.

This morning, the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King III planned to lead more than 40,000 protesters through the streets of Jena – population 3,000 – in singing and chanting in support of six young black men whom they say face a prejudiced prosecutor.

Black and white students have been going at it for more than a year in Jena. But the race-baiting – three nooses hung from a schoolyard tree, slurs and spasms of violence have resulted in misdemeanor charges against white boys and felonies against blacks.

“To some extent, what you can expect to see is a rebirth of the civil rights movement,” said Ki-Afi Moyo, organizer of Dallas-based Internet community “Tx Supports Jena Six,” which filled 20 chartered buses for the trip to Louisiana. “The grassroots response to this has been phenomenal. Even for those who can’t be in Jena, you’ll see people standing in solidarity in whatever way they can on this day. It’s going to be powerful.”

In all, there may be more than 5,000 Texans in Jena today, according to Deric Muhammad, a spokesman for the Houston-based Millions More Movement, which along with the NAACP mobilized most of the caravans rolling into Louisiana today.

Caravans left Wednesday from schools and churches around the state, including Friendship West Baptist in Dallas, Paul Quinn College, Prairie View A&M University and Texas Southern University in Houston.

“I don’t know if I’ll be going, but I know my 10-year-old daughter is paying attention to this,” said Julius Thompson, a black attorney in Addison. “And I want her to watch this. You have to watch and learn before you know how to get involved and change things.”

Some say the case of the “Jena Six” is a symptom of a diseased American legal system, in which laws are colorblind but lawyers and judges and juries see the world through prisms of racial bias.

But others, including many blacks and whites who live in Jena, say the opposite is true – that the case illustrates what happens when outside propagandists attempt to use racial politics to influence objective justice.

Consider the last year in Jena.

First, a black student asked an assistant principal at Jena High School whether he and his friends could sit under an oak tree, a favored meeting spot for white students. He was told to sit wherever he liked.

The next morning, three nooses were discovered hanging from the tree.

Two days later, black students staged an impromptu protest under the tree, prompting school administrators to call the student body into an assembly. Flanked by police officers, LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters stood before the student body and told them any further problems would be treated as a criminal matter.

“I can make your lives disappear with a stroke of my pen,” he said. Black students said the white DA was looking directly at them when he made the remark, an accusation Mr. Walters denies.

Soon after, principal Scott Windham recommended the three white boys responsible for hanging the nooses be expelled from school, but a committee and Superintendent Roy Breithaupt disagreed.

Punishment for the incident was reduced to three days’ in-school suspension.

That decision, according to Alan Bean, founder and director of Arlington-based Friends of Justice, set in motion a series of racially tinged fights that culminated with mirror-image gang-type assaults in December.

In an off-campus attack on a Friday night, one of the Jena Six – Robert Bailey – was attacked with beer bottles by a group of white men at a party.

The next Monday, white student Justin Barker taunted Mr. Bailey about the beating. Moments later, six black students knocked Mr. Barker unconscious and kicked him for more than a minute while he was lying in a school hallway. He face was badly swollen and bloodied, but he was able to attend a school function that night.

Five of the black students, including 17-year-old Mychal Bell, were charged with attempted second-degree murder with bail amounts ranging from $70,000 to $138,000. The charges eventually were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery. In the attack on Mr. Bailey, one white man was charged – with simple battery.

Mr. Bell, the only one of the Jena Six still being held in jail, was convicted by an all-white jury of aggravated second-degree battery, a count that could have sent him to prison for 15 years. A state court overturned the June conviction, though, ruling he should not have been tried as an adult.

Mr. Bell remains in jail while prosecutors prepare an appeal. Four others among the Jena Six are awaiting trial. The sixth student is a juvenile, and his case is sealed.

“I think the bottom line is that none of these kids should have their lives destroyed by a felony,” said Mr. Bean, a white Baptist minister who is credited with researching the story and serving it to the national press. “The tension here was created by the school superintendent and district attorney who put these kids in an adversarial position.”

Mr. Walters, breaking a long public silence Wednesday at a news conference, denied that racism was involved. He also said the suffering of the beating victim, Mr. Barker, has been largely ignored.

“With all the emphasis on the defendant, the injury done to him and the serious threat to his existence has become a footnote,” he said of Mr. Barker, who accompanied the prosecutor but declined to speak.

Mr. Walters also said he didn’t prosecute the students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no applicable Louisiana law.

“I cannot overemphasize what a villainous act that was. The people that did it should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town,” he said.

U.S. Attorney Donald Washington, who is black, criticized school officials for mishandling discipline at the school but told Jena residents during a public meeting last month that he found no evidence of unfair prosecution or sentencing.

The all-white jury was selected because none of the 350 blacks in LaSalle Parish who were called for jury duty showed up.

Today’s rally was organized on the Internet, mobilized by black radio personalities and promoted by rap stars such as Most Def, Ice Cube and Common, who are all expected to attend.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barak Obama has called the charges “excessive.

“I hope the judicial process will move deliberately to ensure that all of the defendants will receive a fair trial and equal justice under the law,” the Illinois senator said.

Law enforcement officers from across Louisiana and U.S. marshals are expected to be in town to help with crowd control. Jena’s schools will be closed.

As for the oak tree in front of the high school, district officials cut it down for firewood last year.

The Associated Press and McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this report.

 

‘JENA SIX’ TIMELINE

Some details of events fueling racial tension in Jena, La., are in dispute. According to published news reports, here’s how things unfolded:

Aug. 31, 2006: Black students at Jena High School seek permission to sit under a shady oak where white students traditionally congregate at lunch. They are told they can sit anywhere.

Sept. 1: Three nooses are found hanging from the tree.

Sept. 7-8: Jena High’s principal recommends that three white students be expelled after they admit hanging the nooses. He is overruled by the superintendent and school board, who call the incident a prank. The students are suspended for two days.

Nov. 30: Fire destroys the school’s academic wing. Later that night, a fight is reported at a party attended mostly by whites. A black student, Robert Bailey (who would become one of the Jena Six), is beaten with beer bottles.

Dec. 4: Jena High reopens. Mr. Bailey is taunted by a white student, Justin Barker, who is then attacked by several black students and knocked unconscious. Mr. Barker is treated at a hospital and attends a school event that evening.

Dec. 5-6: Six black students are arrested in the Dec. 4 fight and charged with aggravated second-degree battery. Deputies arrest a white student in the Nov. 30 fight; he’s charged with simple battery and given probation.

Dec. 7: The district attorney upgrades charges against the six black students to attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. Bail amounts range from $70,000 to $138,000. A week later, the district attorney announces that Mychal Bell, 16, will be tried as an adult; his bail is set at $90,000.

June 25: Mychal Bell’s trial begins before an all-white jury. His charges are reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit the same. Three days later, jurors convict him of the two charges.

Sept. 4: A judge drops the conspiracy conviction.

Sept. 14: A state appeals court overturns Mr. Bell’s remaining conviction, ruling that he should not have been tried as an adult. His case will go back to juvenile court.

SOURCES: Daily Town Talk (Alexandria, La.); McClatchy Newspapers