Friends:

Three hundred people from across the nation descended on little Jena, Louisiana on July 31^st. They came to pledge their support to the Jena 6 defendants and their families. At the end of a two-hour rally, a dozen volunteers hand-delivered over 43,000 petitions demanding that District Attorney Reed Walters back away from the worst prosecutorial decision of his life.

I must apologize for my recent silence. Friends of Justice has just completed a major (and momentous) move from Tulia, Texas to Arlington, Texas, and it has been impossible for me to send out updates or even remember my middle name. So much has happened in recent days and the media coverage has been remarkably intense and varied.

Most of you will have heard that Mychal Bell’s sentencing hearing has been postponed until September. Mychal’s attorneys have filed a motion for a new trial, arguing that Mychal should not have been tried as an adult and that his trial was hopelessly flawed. The judge appears willing to hear arguments in support of these assertions—very good news for Mychal and his parents.

Some amazing legal talent is being recruited to the defense effort. The details are still falling into place so I can’t give a great deal of detail, but rest assured that the Jena 6 defendants will be effectively represented.

The response to the appeal for support of the Jena 6 Defense Fund has been phenomenal, outstripping our most optimistic projections. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.

Yesterday’s rally was a tremendous success: (http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-33/1185888575136460.xml&storylist=louisiana).

The numbers were very impressive and there will be more opportunities for supporters of the Jena 6 to come to Jena (and probably also to the state capitol in Baton Rouge) in the next few months. Stay tuned for updates.

The highlight yesterday (for me, at least) was a barbecue held at a ball park on the black side of town. An enormous tent had been erected to protect everyone from the sun and rain (we had a plenty of both) and people from across the nation were given a wonderful opportunity to interact. I moved from table to table, gathering contact information and listening to stories. People traveled to Jena from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Boston, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and from dozens of little towns in Texas and Louisiana. The gathering was exceptionally diverse, about two-thirds black and one-third white, with large numbers of college students and retirees in attendance. Not surprisingly, most of the people who traveled to Jena are actively fighting for justice in their own communities.

Many of you will also have heard that the infamous “white tree” in the square at the Jena High School has been sawed down and chopped into fire wood: (http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070731/NEWS01/707310334/1060/NEWS01). School officials hope this move will reduce tensions between black and white students. Perhaps. But the tree in Jena was never the problem; the problem was using a tree as a segregating line in the air.

The media coverage of the Jena story remains strong. Wade Goodwyn did an excellent feature for NPR’s All Things Considered on Monday; two days later it remains the most emailed piece on the NPR site: (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12353776). NBC Nightly News did a little “town divided” story last night (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/). Unfortunately, the only white guy in town willing to talk to the media is school board member, Billy Fowler. Fowler resents the repeated suggestion that Jena is a uniquely racist community; but he agrees that the entire situation, from the noose incident to the school fight, has been handled badly.

I don’t have time at the moment to give adequate attention to each of the major articles that have appeared recently, but a few brief observations are in order. Several articles in the regional media focus on a DOJ-sponsored town hall meeting held in Jena last Thursday (http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007707260329 and http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070727/NEWS01/707270319/1002). United States Attorney, Don Washington was on hand along with Carmelita Freeman, a DOJ official from Dallas, and a representative from the FBI. They expected a crowd of about 20 people and got ten times that number—virtually every African American adult in Jena and a handful of white residents. That gives you a good feel for how things presently stand: white folks are on the defensive. There is a growing realization that Mr. Walters dropped the ball. On the other hand, the carpetbaggers and scalawags from the North telling Jena how to amend its wicked ways are deeply resented.

I have had dealings with US Attorney Don Washington in the past. He is the man who was forced to drop charges against Ann Colomb and three of her sons last year. Even though evidence emerged that the convicted drug dealer snitches who testified at trial were participating in a tightly organized perjury ring, Mr. Washington couldn’t admit that he and his assistants had screwed up.

So it goes in Jena. Washington admits that the nooses constituted a hate crime, but he says his hands are tied. Unless he can prove that Reed Walters intended to discriminate against the Jena 6, Washington says, he can’t take action.

Governor Blanco is also passing the buck. Some of the 43,000 people who have emailed their concern to the governor’s office have received “thanks for sharing, but I can’t help” responses from a staffer. This means that we need to turn up the heat another notch.

Finally, it appears that the national NAACP has joined the fight with a vengeance. Go to their website (http://www.naacp.org/) and Jena jumps out at you. (They feature a picture of the wrong tree—but I guess that’s a moot criticism now.) We welcome the support of America’s most prestigious civil rights organization. We are currently taking steps to enhance coordination and communication within the rapidly expanding coalition of civil rights and civil liberties organizations gathering around the Jena 6.

I will be writing more when I get back to Arlington. If you appreciate the work of Friends of Justice in Jena, please consider making a donation to support our organizing across Texas and Louisiana. You can donate online here, or send a check to the address below. You can also designate donations to the Jena 6 Organizing Fund to support our work for the Jena 6: https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/jena-6/

 

Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly.

Alan Bean

Friends of Justice
3415 Ainsworth Court
Arlington, TX 76016
806-729-7889 or 817-457-0025

Other coverage worth checking out:

http://www.aspendailynews.com/article_20958

A recent column from Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/jenasix731

A helpful Blackwebamerica update.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11756302

Jordan Flaherty and Caseptla Bailey interview from NPR, July 5

For all of you in the Boston area…

grace and peace,
Lydia Bean

Please come today July 31, to Harvard square to rally for Justice for the Jena Six!
We are meeting in front of the Harvard bookstore at 4:45pm. We will be handing out fliers, gathering petition signatures, and asking people to be on the mailing list…
It’s a first step, and we will be rallying in solidarity with our friends in Jena who are also gathering today!

Please contact me through my personal e-mail– keurdiarra@gmail.com

 Protest info:

Thanks for your interest in coming to Jena, LA to support the Jena 6!

It’s short notice, but on Tuesday, July 31st–the date Mychal Bell was originally scheduled to be sentenced–there will be a program and rally at the courthouse in Jena, organized by the families and their supporters. Having a sizable number of outsiders there will help focus media attention on the situation and communicate to the officials in Jena that the rest of us are watching. It will also be meaningful for the families of the Jena 6 to know that others support them, from near and far. It would be great if you could come.

As we help locals plan for this event, we want to get a sense of how many people are coming. Below, are some details on getting to Jena, so you can figure out if you’ll be able to get there on the 31st.

Details

If you’re flying to Louisiana, the closest airport to Jena is in Alexandria, a 45 minute drive away. There are also airports in Shreveport (about a 3 hour drive from Jena), New Orleans (about a 4 hr drive from Jena) and Baton Rouge (about 3 hrs from Jena). The closest hotels are in Alexandria (there is only one motel in Jena, which will fill up quickly).

Organizers will meet you when you arrive at a central location in Jena and get you situated for the day. We will be providing maps, organizers’ cell phone numbers, and other information closer to the day-of; you will be able to reach someone in case you have any problems, need directions, or have questions along the way. In addition to the rally, we hope to have a few other activities planned so you can get to know the town a bit before you leave.

RSVP

Once you’re confident you can come (or if you have unanswered questions), please send an email to jena@colorofchange.org , and provide us with the following information:

1. Your name
2. How many people you think will come with you, if any (we encourage you to organize a group, if you can)
3. A cell phone number where we can reach you (and whether or not it’s ok to send you text messages)
4. The area from which you’re traveling
5. How you are planning on getting to Jena (and if by air, into which airport)
6. And any other questions you might have

If you’ve decided you can’t come, there’s no need to email us. Either way, thanks for taking action in support of the Jena 6, and for considering coming to Jena. We hope to see you soon.

Thanks and Peace,

– James Rucker
Executive Director, ColorOfChange.org
July 26th, 2007

Greetings,

Attention all folks in the Big Apple! NYC-area people are looking to organize a protest in your city related to the Jena 6! (I, Lydia Bean from FOJ, will be in the area on August 15th and 16th, so if you have it then, I’d love to join y’all!)

If you’re NYC and want to take action for the Jena 6, please contact Shannon Reid, whose message is posted below:

grace and peace,
Lydia Bean

I just found out about this today, and feel compelled to take some action. I’m in Brooklyn, NY and would love to connect with anybody in the area that’s interested in organizing some action here in NYC.

Please e-mail me at sreid03@gmail.com if this applies to you.

Thanks, and to everybody – keep fighting the good fight!

Shannon Reid
sreid03@gmail.com

Here’s the latest from Jena. Hours after a community meeting at Jena’s tiny Antioch Baptist Church ended two men from Monroe, Louisiana destroyed a sign in front of the church building. According to eyewitness reports, they also did a “wheelie” on the rain-sodden lawn before driving off. The meeting was attended by 150 people; approximately 60 of whom were from neighboring communities.

I have pasted some of the comments from the Alexandria Town Talk after this brief AP article. The comments are typical: white folks think the boys from Monroe were “stupid”. This is also the term many white Jena and Alexandria residents used to describe the hanging of nooses in the “white tree” at the Jena High School.

Black people see the destruction of the sign as intimidation–a hate crime.

The Jena story is rapidly capturing the American imagination. As of yet, the story hasn’t been featured on the national news, but a couple of weeks should take care of that. The major civil rights groups have yet to weigh in publicly–but behind the scenes the action in the reform community is frantic and unrelenting. This story is about to explode.

I don’t know John Sanderson and Jerry Bufkin, the young white men from Monroe who decided to mow down the church sign in Jena, but the true name of the perpetrators is Legion. The Jena story fascinates and horrifies because it uncovers the dynamics of New Jim Crow racism.

According to most white people in Central Louisiana, there is no association between the nooses hanging from the tree in the High School square and the assault at the school three months later. To hear their story, Justin Barker was the random victim of black thugs eager to beat up a defenseless white kid. In this telling, the incident is stripped of all context. The crime is considered horrifying precisely because it is arbitrary and senseless.

Black people (and a growing cadre of justice-loving white people) are beginning to grasp the broader picture.

People are learning that the LaSalle Parish School Superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, called the noose hanging a childish prank and recommended the mildest of consequences–three days of in-school suspension.

People are learning that black students responded to Mr. Breithaupt’s announcement by staging a spontaneous lunch hour protest in the school square. Black students, led by a group of male athlestes, physically occupied the tree–claiming it as their own. (Thus far, no one in Jena has denied that the tree from which the nooses dangled provided shade for white shoulders only).

People are learning that high school officials responded to this legitimate and honorable protest by calling an emergency assembly in the school auditorium. Every police officer in town was asked to appear in full uniform. District Attorney, Reed Walters, looking cross and distracted, addressed the students.

Imagine a school auditorium in which the white students (in accordance with tradition) sit on one side of the aisle while the black students sit on the other side. Imagine the District Attorney directing his full attention to the black side of the room. Imagine Reed Walters zeroing in on the black male athletes who sparked the lunch hour protest. Now you’ve got a feel for the atmosphere.

Now, imagine Reed Walters waving a pen in the air with a dramatic flourish. “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy,” he tells the black students. The protests at the school have got to stop, he insists, and if they don’t, “With a stroke of my pen I can make your lives disappear.”

I am not repeating hearsay–Mr. Walters admitted to issuing this threat in the course of a mid-July hearing in the LaSalle Parish courtroom. He was angry with the black student protesters, he explained, because they were making a big fuss over nothing. He wanted the white and black students to “work things out on their own” without wasting his valuable time.

People are beginning to understand that Superintendent Roy Breithaupt could have foreclosed on months of outrage and protest simply by calling the noose incident a serious hate crime. That’s all the man had to do. He couldn’t do it.

People are beginning to understand that District Attorney Reed Walters could have defused the tense situation Mr. Breithaupt had created if he had told the student assembly that hate crimes would not be tolerated in LaSalle Parish. Had Walters waved his pen at the white side of the auditorium and issued a warning to the racist element within the student population, nothing would have remained for the kids to “work out on their own.”

But that’s just the problem: Mr. Breithaupt and Mr. Walters didn’t see the noose incident as a hate crime. They didn’t see the hate behind the nooses because they couldn’t. As representatives of Jena’s power people, these men had to see the nooses as a silly prank; there was no no practical alternative.

People are beginning to understand that the official response to the noose hanging (symbolized by the public comments of Mssrs. Breithaupt and Walters) validated the color line the noose hangers were desperate to preserve.

People are beginning to understand that in the wake of Mr. Breithaupt’s “silly prank” comment and Mr. Walters’ “stroke of my pen” threat, the black male athletes who staged the protest under the “white tree” had two choices: they could surrender their pride and manhood by accepting a reassertion of the racial status quo; or they could continue their protest by other means.

Unfortunately, thanks to Mr. Breithaupt and Mr. Walters, all forms of legitimate protest had been taken off the table. If the white noose hangers and the black protesters were going to “work things out on their own” there was going to be trouble–and Breithaupt and Walters knew it.

People are beginning to realize the true significance of Mr. Walters’ threat. He was setting up a situation that was bound to end in racially-tinged violence. Sooner or later some white kid was going to take his lumps at the hands of black kids–and when that day arrived, Mr. Walters planned to be waiting at the courthouse, pen at the ready.

And so, a day after the Jena High School went up in flames, Robert Bailey was brutally attacked by a mob of white students (and young adults) as he entered a Friday night dance. Robert was kicked, punched and whacked with a beer bottle. This was precisely what Mr. Walters was looking for . . . only the violence flowed in the wrong direction.

No matter, everyone knew the assault on Robert Bailey would not go unanswered. Although teachers begged the administration to give the students a few days before returning to class, the administration called for the resumption of classes Monday morning. This decision guaranteed that the demons unleashed on Friday evening would still be dancing–a backlash was inevitable.

Eyewitness student accounts make it clear that the attack on Justin Barker was preceded by a heated encounter between white students taunting Robert Bailey for having had his “butt kicked” on Friday night and black student athletes who were powerless to respond . . . unless, that is, they wanted Mr. Walters to make good on his threat to make their lives disappear.

There is no sense debating the relative demerits of hanging nooses in a tree vs. punching and kicking a defenseless student. Both actions are deplorable. What has been missed in the noose-fight debate is the intimate association between the two events. If Mr. Breithaupt and Mr. Walters responded to the noose incident in a spirit of justice, fairness and simple common sense in early September, there would have been nothing to fight about in early December.

People are beginning to grasp the appalling irony of this case: the man who stripped black male athletes of their constitutional right to protest in September pulled out his pen in December and made their lives disappear. The perpetrator has become the prosecutor.

And now Mr. Walters is being asked to respond to the young men who mowed down the sign in front of Antioch Baptist Church. Since the perpetrators are white and the victims are black, the outcome is pre-ordained–a “silly prank” will spark a mild fine and life will go on.

But not for long. Nothing will ever be the same in Jena, Louisiana. The racial status quo will change. The white tree at the High School must be reconsecrated as a unity tree or it must be leveled. There is no middle ground.

Alan Bean

Friends of Justice

https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com

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If you want to get involved, please sign this online petition about Jena:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?aZ51CqmR