The day ended with an aging hate-monger named Richard Barrett screaming into a megaphone to an audience of five.  At its inglorious height, the “Nationalist Movement” rally drew thirty lost souls to Jena.

Unfortunately, a crowd of 200 counter-protesters breathed a spark of life into the tawdry charade.  White Nationalists and New Black Panthers–equally opposed to the non-violent vision of Martin Luther King–trudged the streets of Jena exchanging insults. 

The most detailed coverage of the non-event comes from Abbey Brown of the the Alexandria Towntalk.  Read and weep.

Jena’s black community joyfully embraced the immense throng who visited Jena back in September.  Wisely, Jena’s white folks gave the Barrett fiasco a pass. 

If the remaining five defendants (Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Jesse Ray Beard) are offered reasonable plea agreements, the Jena 6 saga will end quietly. 

Richard Barrett wants to drag America back to 1955.  The Panthers are mired in the sturm und drang of 1968.  In contrast, the 20,000 people who rode the buses to Jena back in September were firmly rooted in the present.  They understood that most African Americans have benefited tremendously from the civil rights movement.  They also know that the issues that occupied Dr. King during his last year of life, war and poverty, continue to give the American dream a nightmarish quality.

Brandishing dangerous fire arms, strutting around in military fatigues, exchanging insults and epithets with mirror-image opponents–nothing good can come from this.  There was a cartoonish quality to yesterday’s demonstration that degrades and devalues genuine non-violent protest.

I have paid very little attention to the Barrett hate-fest; attention is precisely what the lunatic fringe craves.   In retrospect, I have two good words to say about yesterday’s protest . . . It’s over!