The best commentary on Jena rarely appears in the mainstream media.  This essay in The Black Chronicle gets a few minor facts wrong, but the analysis is spot on: Jena is about public officials sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.  If you are inclined to believe that the Jena 6 case is being “blown out of proportion,” please read on.

A Missed Opportunity

Jena 6 Racial Uproar Preventable Five decades ago, civil rights struggles could be seen in stark, good versus evil terms. Virtuous pioneers such as the Little Rock Nine, James Meredith and Rosa Parks confronted raw racism and triumphed over it. Today, racial injustice persists, still corrosive, but less overt, and so it is in tiny Jena, La, where dangling nooses, an overzealous prosecutor and an insensitive establishment have drawn international attention and generated talk of a new civil rights movement. Some of the evidence in Jena is murky or in dispute, and the “Jena Six” — the Black teens at the heart of the story — don’t quite conjure images of civil rights heroes of the past. While the Little Rock Nine heroically challenged a bigoted governor who attempted to keep them out of a segregated high school by armed force, the Jena Six are accused of beating a white classmate in front of dozens of witnesses. The question is whether they, like so many other Blacks, were wronged because of their race. They were charged with attempted murder even though the beating victim was well enough to go to a school function that night. The cases are still being adjudicated. However, a careful review of the known events that led up to the beating suggests that the way white authorities handled racial tensions in their overwhelmingly white town may well have turned a manageable, teachable situation into a racial maelstrom. School officials appear to have minimized or patronized Black concerns, while the district attorney filed inappropriately severe charges against the Black teens — a double standard that rightly resonated with Blacks across the nation. The story revolves around two primary, but not directly related, episodes: The Nooses. Thirteen months ago, when a Black student asked at a Jena High School assembly whether he could sit under a tree known as a gathering place for white students, an assistant principal told him he could sit anywhere he wanted. The next day, though, two nooses were found dangling from the tree. Hanging nooses is not a crime under Louisiana law, but, in a state where 335 Blacks were lynched from 1882 to 1968 (a total exceeded only in Mississippi, Georgia and Texas), it is a repugnant, overtly racist act. Three white students were quickly identified as the perpetrators. The principal recommended their expulsion. But a school board committee overruled him. The students were suspended — but the length and terms were not disclosed. “Some alternative suspension, along with other criteria,” LaSalle Parish School Supt. Roy Breithaupt told the Town Talk in nearby Alexandria, La., shortly afterward. The vague language proved maddening. Stories circulated that the suspension was for three days; this echoed in multiple media reports and became an article of faith. Just in the past few days, Supt. Breithaupt has begun saying that the students were suspended at an alternative school for nine days, served “in-school” suspension for two weeks and faced detentions and other penalties — a far more fitting response. In the absence of any clarity, though, Black parents and other Blacks in the community, incensed over the nooses, grew more angry at this perceived leniency. Some tried to talk to the school board and were turned away, according to the Alexandria newspaper. At the next meeting, one parent got five minutes to speak. When she was done, only the lone Black on the 10-member board thanked her. The meeting went right on. “They act like she didn’t even come,” one parent told a reporter. The school’s response to the nooses was almost as clumsy. Officials called an assembly to calm students and invited District Attorney Reed Walters. “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make your life miserable,” District Attorney Walters recalled warning the students. That blunt statement ignited deeper resentment. Three months after the nooses appeared, in early December, two scuffles over a single weekend revived racial tensions. When school opened on Monday, Dec. 4, they exploded. A Black student — identified by some witnesses as 16-year-old Mychal Bell — hit Justin Barker, a white student, as he walked into the schoolyard after lunch. As Justin Barker lay motionless on the ground, Black students allegedly kicked him in the head. He was treated for cuts, bruises and a swollen eye and released from the hospital later that day. He attended a school ceremony that night. J ustin Barker was not involved in the noose incident, authorities said, and they found no hard evidence to connect that incident to the assault. Six students, ages 14 to 18, were arrested. Mr. Walters, the district attorney, charged five with attempted second degree murder and conspiracy, driving home his point that he could make lives miserable. Together, the two charges carry prison sentences of up to 75 years. All six students, including one charged as a juvenile, were expelled. A judge set high bonds — $70,000 to $138,000. Mychal Bell spent nearly 10 months in jail. Another teen spent more than six. As the case started drawing national attention, District Attorney Walters began reducing the charges. Mychal Bell was tried first. He was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy by an all-white jury in June. (Only whites showed up for jury duty that day, according to the Alexandria paper, not necessarily surprising in a parish that is 86 percent white and 12 percent Black.) Since then, an appeals court has overturned Mychal Bell’s conviction, ruling he should not have been tried as an adult on those particular charges. District Attorney Walters said he will prosecute Mychal Bell again, this time as a juvenile. Four others, ages 17 and 18 when the fight occurred, still face charges as adults. By this summer, the perceived under-reaction to the nooses, contrasted with the harsh treatment of the six teens, had caught fire on Black radio and reverberated across the Internet. The national media descended on Jena, and on Sept. 20, civil rights activists, including Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, led a rally that drew thousands to the town, many waving signs proclaiming, “Free the Jena 6.” What works on a placard, however, will not resolve a criminal case. If the six Jena teens were involved in beating Justin Barker, they are no choir boys. Mychal Bell, for example, has been found responsible for several juvenile crimes, including two batteries and was on probation at the time of the beating, according to the Town Talk. (For that matter, the victim, Justin Barker, was arrested last May at Jena High after a gun was found in his truck.) The six accused teens deserve to be dealt with by the criminal justice system — but fairly and judiciously. Instead, District Attorney Walters brought the most severe charge imaginable. He cited the sneakers the teens wore as lethal weapons. He failed to take into account their youth. The community was left to wonder: Would District Attorney Walters have done the same if the “Jena Six” were white teens and their alleged victim were Black? That point resonates with Black Americans, not because this case is an aberration in 2007, but because it seems so commonplace. Just ask any Black man who has been stopped for “driving while Black” — and most will tell you they have, or look at the findings of a 1999 study of the city of New York’s “stop and frisk“ program, which concluded that Blacks were detained at higher rates than whites. While Blacks made up about a quarter of the city’s population, about 51 percent of all persons stopped were Black, the New York attorney general found. Other research, published by Stanford University, suggests prosecutors consider white victims, especially of non-white offenders, to be more credible than non-white victims. Is it any wonder so many Blacks are distrustful of the criminal justice system? Throughout the episodes in Jena, authorities seem to have lost sight of the obvious goal when a teenager goes off track. It is to salvage his life — usually by some mix of punishment and instruction — not to destroy it. That applies to noose hangers and muggers, though perhaps not in equal proportions. More broadly, authorities in Jena appear to have had ample opportunities to use those hateful nooses to open talks about race relations with students and parents, Black and white — the most productive outlet for racial tensions. District Attorney Walters had a chance to use his discretion more wisely. If there is a lesson here for the rest of the nation, it is to recognize that color-blind justice is far too rare and that, when racial tensions simmer, they need a peaceful outlet, not hot flames that will bring them to a boil.

Thus far, the Black America Web is the only media outlet to run this story.  While that reflects well on the hardworking Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, it doesn’t suggest a high degree of interest in these hearings within the mainstream media. 

I note that US Attorney Don Washington’s will be testifying.  Washington says the assault on Justin Barker has no pre-history or context–it just came out of the blue; some black thugs looking for a white victim–any white victim. 

This is the theory that reigned unchallenged before I began my research in January of this year.  Asked to explain his statement, Washington noted that none of the witnesses who testified at trial mentioned the nooses.  He failed to point out that Judge JP Mauffray had ruled the subject out of bounds. 

In addition, the egregious Blaine Williams (who ought to be disciplined for his inept handling of Mychal Bell’s trial in adult court) made no attempt to tie the assault on Barker to the nooses, or to any other event.  Like Mr. Washington, Williams was serving as a shill for the status quo. 

Don Washington was appointed as a US Attorney by George W. Bush because he is (a) black and (b) conservative.  Blaine Williams was appointed to serve as Mychal Bell’s court appointed attorney because (a) he is black and, (b) he could be counted on to take a fall.

That’s where the comparison ends.  Washington is suave, sane and strategic; Williams is bizarre, bungling, and befuddled (that is, the perfect man for the job he was given).  I have always had the impression that Washington, for all his conservatism, knows far more than he is willing to say. 

I can’t think of Don Washington without remembering a federal trial in Lafayette in 2006 in which a Church Point housewife and three of her sons were charged with running a crack ring out of their home.  The judge was white.  The four attorneys were white.  All the court officials were white.  The jury was white.  Only the defendants and several dozen federal inmates paid to perjure themselves with promises of time cuts, were black. 

Don Washington attended the trial with his pre-adolescent son.  I kept wondering what was going on in the young boy’s head as he watched black drug dealers testifying against a black family with all these white people looking on.  The young man had no way of knowing that the charges against Ann Colomb and her sons were ridiculous; but the racial composition of the courtroom (though par for the course in America) must have left the child with an uneasy feeling.

When a growing stream of evidence suggested that the convicted drug dealers in this case were participants in an elaborate creative writing assignment, federal judge Tucker Melancon vacated the conviction and freed the defendants.  At the conclusion of an FBI investigation, Don Washington was forced to announce that the Department of Justice was dropping all charges against Ann Colomb, Danny Davis, Sammy Davis and Edward Colomb. 

Mr. Washington assured reporters that the family was guilty nonetheless.

If, like me, Mr. Washington had interviewed every member of the Colomb’s extended family, their neighbors, their pastors and priests, and had conducted extensive research into the racial history of Church Point, La., he would have realized that his case against the Colomb family was ludicrous.  With his inmate snitches discredited, there was insufficient evidence to continue with the prosecution; but that didn’t stop the US Attorney from passing down his own guilty verdict.

You now understand why I wasn’t encouraged by the news that a black US Attorney would be “investigating” the Jena situation.  The investigation, from the evidence at hand, appears to have consisted of a brief chat with the school superintendent, the DA, and a cursory examination of an FBI report from September into the noose incident.  I assume that Washington also glanced through the eye witness statements in Mychal Bell’s file at the courthouse and a few other court documents. 

But the US Attorney didn’t talk to the black community.  He never asked them any questions.  Instead, he attended a townhall meeting in which he assured everyone that the Jena 6 prosecution passed the smell test.  The noose incident could have been handled better, he admitted, and he wasn’t impressed with the Lonesome Dove noose theory; but no hate crime had been committed.  Then he severed the events of December 4th from their natural context. 

I hope some members of the House Judiciary Committee have a few good questions for Mr. Washington.  I certainly do.

Jena Six Case to Be Subject of Hearing Before House Judiciary Committee Tuesday Morning

Date: Monday, October 15, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on the Jena Six case Tuesday morning, less than a week after a youth at the center of the controversy was locked up again.

Mychal Bell, the only one of the six youths who had been convicted in connection with a Dec. 4 fight with a white classmate, was ordered to a juvenile facility on Thursday. The most recent sentence, handed down by LaSalle Parish Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr., was not directly related to the December 2006 incident. The judge said Bell had violated terms of his probation from earlier convictions on juvenile charges of simple battery and criminal destruction. He must now spend 18 months in a juvenile detention facility.

An appeals court ruled in September that the lower court erred by handling Bell’s charges for the 2006 incident in adult court and his conviction was overturned. He still is awaiting trial on juvenile charges related to the fight with Justin Barker at Jena High School.

Bell’s parents and civil rights leaders were outraged by the latest sentence. Attempts by Bell’s family and civil rights leaders so far to get another judge on the case have been unsuccessful. The same judge who handled the adult case is also handling the juvenile case in the small town.

“The judge did this out of madness,” Marcus Jones, Bell’s father said in an interview Friday with Jacque Reid on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show.” “It’s like he was saying, ‘I’m going to show him something.’”

Attempts by BlackAmericaWeb.com to interview the judge on Friday were unsuccessful. A secretary answering the phone in his office said the judge could not comment on the case because it is a juvenile matter.

Jones said he and Bell’s mother, Melissa Bell, have been told they will have to pay court costs, as well as $600 a month for the period their son is incarcerated.

The Rev. Al Sharpton has said he will assist in raising funds to help. “We’ll come up with the money,” Sharpton said in an interview on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show.”

“This is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard of,” Sharpton said. “What about the 10 months he has already served?”

Bell was locked up December 2006 and remained in jail until late September. He was out only a couple of weeks before being taken away last Thursday following what he and his family believed would be a routine hearing.

“Right now, what we’ve got to do is be strong enough to say we’re not going to stand for it,” Sharpton said.

The New York-based activist is among the six witnesses scheduled to testify Tuesday before the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), said Jonathon Godfrey, a spokesman for the committee.

Other witnesses will include U.S. Attorney Donald Washington from the Western District of Louisiana; Lisa Krigsten, counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division; Richard Cohen, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center; Rev. Brian Moran, pastor of the Jena Antioch Baptist Church and president of the NAACP Jena chapter, and Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree.

Additional witnesses may join the list before the hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building, and currently there are no representatives of the Louisiana judicial system scheduled to appear, Godfrey told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Conyers announced in September that he would convene a hearing looking into justice in Jena. In that small town, six high school youths faced charges of attempted murder and bonds of up to $130,000 for a school fight.

Months before that fight, white youths hung nooses in a tree at Jena High School. Those youths were suspended from school for several days.

On Sept. 21, over 50,000 people from across the country descended on the town of 3,000, calling for justice for the Jena Six. In addition to Bell, Carwin Jones, Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw, Bryant Purvis and an unnamed juvenile await trials on charges in connection with the fight.

Ogletree said the congressional hearing is an important step.

“What the Congressional committee probably will do is something that will look forward. They can look at what can be done to prevent this from happening to other youths,” Ogletree told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I don’t know what they can do to intervene in Mychal Bell’s case.”

Daryl Washington, who represents the National Bar Association members in the region that includes Jena, said it’s time to start striking back.

“Because this is now a juvenile matter, there is basically a gag on what the lawyers in the case can say,” Washington told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “It’s time to say this is vindictive prosecution.”

The same judge who originally convicted Bell on adult charges is the same judge who has sentenced him to 18 months in a juvenile facility on unrelated charges, Ogletree said.

“A judge should always consider to what extent an individual already has been punished,” he said. “And in juvenile sentencing, there is usually balance where a judge also considers what is in the best interest of the child.”

Across the nation, young activists who organized bus trips to Jena on September 20th are finding creative ways to keep the momentum alive.  In the Dallas Fort Worth area, a group called Equal Justice has emerged under the leadership of a gifted young woman named Ki-Afi Moyo.  Friends of Justice is cooperating with this coalition of concerned organizations.  Alan Bean was one of a dozen local leaders to address the meeting described in this Fort Worth Star-Telegram article.

Posted on Sun, Oct. 14, 2007

Activists aim to harness Jena’s momentum

By ANNA M. TINSLEY

Star-Telegram staff writer

 We’re not done yet.

That’s the motto of some North Texans who vow to build on the momentum they gained when joining thousands of Americans in swarming to Jena, La., last month to show support for a half-dozen African-American youths embroiled in a civil rights controversy.

They’ve been meeting, planning and strategizing on how to continue — and advance — what some say may be a long-awaited revitalization of the civil rights movement.

“We’re concerned about the future of America — just the hope and promise that America puts out there,” said Ki-Afi Moyo, an organizer with the North Texas-based Equal Justice group. “This is a free country where people are supposed to have equal civil rights. That’s what we all want to believe in.

“But it’s not equal; it’s not all fair,” said Moyo, of Dallas. “We want to continue to have hope, but America is not delivering on the promise.”

Some say recent outrage over the Jena Six, the Louisiana youths charged as adults in an assault last year on a white student, touched a nerve across the nation. It sparked rallies, marches and protests — a level of activism seldom seen since the 1950s and 1960s.

Locally, Equal Justice is working to get North Texans involved in the movement through letter-writing campaigns, a court-watching program and registering people to vote.

“This is about injustice, period,” said Latrice Fowler of Little Elm, also a member of the North Texas group. “The events that happened in Jena woke a lot of people up, people who were trying to let things get better on its own.

“But enough is enough,” she said. “We have to stand up for our rights and what is fair.”

A new movement?

Thousands of people jammed into the Jena, a town of 3,000, last month to show support for Mychal Bell, one of the teens at the heart of the controversy.

Racial tensions began last year after a black student sat under a tree that was a traditional gathering spot for white students. After nooses were hung from the tree, three white students were suspended but weren’t criminally prosecuted.

After several racially motivated fights, Bell and five other black teens were accused of beating a white classmate, leaving him unconscious and bleeding.

Bell, so far the only one to be prosecuted, was initially charged with attempted murder but was ultimately convicted of battery. An appeals court recently threw out the conviction, saying he should have been tried as a juvenile, and he was released on bail last month after 10 months in jail. A judge put him back in jail last week for violating probation for a previous offense.

Many of the protesters in Jena last month spoke about the differences in how some black and white people are treated.

“It’s really good the Jena Six got this attention,” said Myrtle Bell, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who focuses on diversity issues. “Hopefully it will accomplish some changes in what happens.

“There are so many similar atrocities across the U.S. that are receiving little or no attention. The criminal justice system unfairly targets and imprisons young men of color.”

And if it is sparking renewed activism — or “the beginning of the 21st-century civil rights movement,” as the Rev. Al Sharpton called it — then Bell and others are encouraged.

Some fear that today’s activists may face an uphill battle, with the absence of strong leader figures in the mold of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Fowler said they will find their way.

“It’s still fresh, and none of us knows exactly what we’re doing,” she said. “But we heard Dr. King started in his 20s, and others started when they were young.

“We’re doing this for the generation that’s coming behind us. Just as I know our ancestors walked and sweated and bled for our rights, I want them to know we will do it too.”

Equal Justice

Equal Justice is the North Texas group formerly known as Texas Supports Jena Six. Organizers said they changed the name to reflect an expanded focus on all cases of injustice, not just the Louisiana case.

They held a town hall meeting in Dallas recently, drawing dozens to brainstorm how to move forward and keep their voices heard.

“We’re just going to continue to see what happens,” Moyo said. “At this point, Jena Six has been the greatest inspiration for new activism in the 21st century. It has inspired people to stand up and take action. It’s about time.”

Among the group’s plans:

Creating Project Shadow, in which volunteers will monitor courts and trials to call attention to any cases — like the Jena Six — that they believe are a matter of injustice.

Developing a system to mobilize protesters for rallies or marches.

Registering people to vote and making sure they get to the polls.

Starting a letter-writing campaign, not only in support of Bell but also for any issue they believe needs officials’ attention.

“We’ve got to continue creating awareness of what’s going on at home,” said Kandice Ezell of Carrollton. “This is about showing our children true role models and how we continue to create a pathway.”

Ezell said Equal Justice wants to help other groups work with them and together, in addition to preparing its own members on how to make their voices heard.

“This is only the beginning,” she said. “There’s still work to be done.”

Continuing developments

Since the Sept. 20 rally in Jena, La., developments include:

Copycat noose threats have been reported, including one last week on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University.

A student in Nashville is suing her school district to be able to wear a “Free the Jena Six” T-shirt, which she was not allowed to wear to school last month.

John Mellencamp wrote a song named Jena, which includes the lyrics “Jena … take your nooses down,” and filmed a video that the Jena mayor called inflammatory and defamatory.

Mychal Bell, the one member of the Jena Six who was in jail at the time of the march, was ultimately released on bail. Last week he was sentenced to 18 months in jail for violating his probation for previous convictions of battery and criminal destruction of property.

Some students participated in the National Student Walk Out for Jena Six on Oct. 1.

Source: Star-Telegram research

atinsley@star-telegram.com
Anna M. Tinsley, 817-390-7610

Schools across the nation are re-evaluating their response to hate crimes on the basis of the tragic events in Jena. Louisiana.  This guide published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, provides practical guidance for educators eager to avoid the mistakes made by Jena officials.

Six Lessons from Jena            September 27, 2007 — What every school and educator can learn from the events in Jena   By Jennifer Holladay    The prosecutions of six black teenagers in Jena, La., have captured the nation’s attention, with thousands of protestors (and nearly as many reporters) descending on the small town last week. As school professionals, we must never lose sight of the fact that it all started with nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree. Six lessons we must take to heart: 

1. Don’t ignore obvious signs of trouble.In Jena, a black student approached the high school principal and asked, “Can we sit under that tree?'” On campus, it was known as the “White Tree” — a place where white students historically gathered. The principal said they could sit wherever they liked. It was an appropriate response, yet one that overlooked the core issue: Why did students feel like they needed to ask for permission? What did the very question reveal about the school’s racial climate? 

2. Examine your school’s climate.You may think your school is “no Jena High” — but do you know for sure? Are there divisions about which you’re unaware? In a survey conducted last year by Teaching Tolerance, the National Education Association and the Civil Rights Project, the vast majority of teachers nationally said their schools were largely free of racial or ethnic tensions. Students, however, paint a very different picture. They describe their schools as “quick to put people into categories,” and one in four report being victimized in racial or ethnic incidents in a typical school year. Race and ethnicity aren’t the only lines of division, either: 70 percent of female students say they’ve been sexually harassed at school; 75 percent of gay students report hearing anti-gay slurs frequently or often at school, and more than a third say they’ve been physically harassed. 

3. Take bias incidents seriously.After a few black students sat under the “White Tree,” three white students hung nooses from it. Jena’s white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, later told the Chicago Tribune, “Adolescents play pranks. I don’t think it was a threat against anybody.” In truth, the hanging of nooses was no youthful prank; it was a bias incident connoting racial lynchings. As Caseplia Bailey, whose son Robert is among the Jena Six, told Britain’s Observer, the act “meant the KKK, it meant … ‘We’re going to kill you, we’re gonna’ hang you ’til you die.'” By their very nature, bias incidents intend to demean or instill fear in those targeted, and schools must address them quickly, consistently and effectively. 

4. Provide forums for meaningful discussion.When bias incidents occur, schools must open lines of communication, not shut down debate. In Jena:  After black students gathered around the “White Tree” as political protest, the principal called a school assembly during which he said it was time to put the noose incident behind them for the sake of the school. The district attorney spoke next, flanked by police officers, warning students: “I can end your life with one stroke of my pen” — the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a fire. When black parents showed up at a school board meeting, they were not allowed to speak. When they showed up again, board members allowed a spokesperson to address them, but then quickly moved on to other business without addressing the parents’ concerns. In highly charged bias incidents, schools should hold forums for educators, students, parents and community members and issue regular updates about the incident, describing what happened, why the incident was unacceptable and how the school has responded thus far. Schools should invite comments from attendees — and seek their input about ways the school, students, parents and community can work together to resolve the underlying problems.  

5. Use bias incidents as teachable moments.Ask teachers to set aside class time to allow students to reflect on what has happened. Because students can influence peer behavior, ask them to write down suggestions for preventing further incidents and promoting respect and to discuss their suggestions in small groups. Because bias incidents often involve the use of bigoted speech (slurs or epithets), conduct lessons to empower students to make respectful language choices. 

6. Bridge divisions in the school — and the community. Organize school-wide events to help students get to know one another and learn about respectful behavior. Mix It Up at Lunch Day (Nov. 13, 2007) and No Name-Calling Week (Jan. 21-25, 2008) are excellent events with which to start.  Schools don’t exist in isolation, however. If tensions exist in a school, they exist in the larger community, too. Whether through dialogue or other social justice programs, like those sponsored by the National League of Cities, the events in Jena serve as a call to each of us to explore what divides us — and what can unite us. Contact us for permission to reprint these materials. Please reference the title and the name and location of your school/organization in your request. Special thanks to Teaching Tolerance team members Samantha Elliott Briggs, Rod Davis, Tafeni English, Michelle Garcia and Rhonda Thomason, as well as Lecia Brooks, director of the Civil Rights Memorial Center, and Jeff Sapp, professor of education at California State University at Dominguez Hills, for their guidance and constructive criticism on earlier drafts.     

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/jenasneakers109

Young NAACPers Collecting ‘Dangerous Weapons’ – Sneakers – to Send to Jena Six D.A.

Date: Monday, October 08, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Tennis shoes were used as dangerous weapons on Dec. 4, 2006 when six black students at Louisiana’s Jena High School fought white schoolmate Justin Barker, LaSalle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters told a courtroom this summer.

So hundreds of miles away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, youth members of the NAACP have launched a drive to encourage people to turn in their dangerous weapons — sneakers, or tennis shoes as they are called in the South.

“We want used sneakers. We want the rank, stank, dirty sneakers. We want to send a message,” said the Rev. Elisha B. Morris, youth advisor for the Philadelphia Youth Council NAACP. “We’re going to box the sneakers up and ship them to the district attorney in Jena, Louisiana.” The group also wants each person who donates sneakers to contribute $2 for the Jena Defense Fund.

The effort is in response to charges brought against six black youths following the 2006 fight. Initially, Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw faced charges attempted murder and conspiracy in connection with the fight. A juvenile was also charged.

Bell was tried as an adult and convicted before an appeals court overturned that action and said Bell’s case should be handled in juvenile court. He is now going through proceedings in juvenile court, which are not public.

The fight followed weeks of racial tension in the town of 3,000 touched off in August 2006, after white students hung nooses from a tree. The white students were suspended from school several days, school officials have said.

The call for equal justice for the Jena Six picked up volume throughout the summer, and on Sept. 20, more than 25,000 people from across the country converged on Jena to show support.

The “Dangerous Weapons Drive” was launched on that day during a rally at Temple University in Philadelphia. Morris said a photographer at the event took his sneakers off and turned them in on the spot along with $2.

“No student, regardless of race, should have to tolerate what the Jena Six has faced,” said Darius Alexander, president of the Temple University Progressive NAACP Chapter.

“The charges were absurd. We want to send a message that this will not be tolerated,” Alexander told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Thursday’s ruling by judge JP Mauffray is yet another reason why the Jena 6 cases must be taken out of his hands.  Mauffray’s bias is emotional and personal.  The same, obviously can be said for District Attorney Reed Walters.  No potential juror in LaSalle Parish can claim to be unaffected by the unprecedented floodtide of controversial coverage this case has seen, thus a change of venue is essential.  Attorneys have been silenced by a gag order, but, as Howard Witt’s story suggests, a whirlwind of indignation is sweeping across the nation in the wake of Mauffray’s arbitrary and capricious ruling. 

_____________________________________

Jena 6 teen’s return to jail draws queries

Judge’s probation ruling called ‘revenge’

By Howard Witt | Tribune senior correspondent October 13, 2007

Houston

Civil rights leaders and juvenile justice experts on Friday sharply questioned the legality of a judge’s surprise decision to send back to jail a black teenager whose prosecution in a racially charged case helped inspire a massive demonstration in the small Louisiana town of Jena last month.

Attorneys for Mychal Bell, 17, said they would quickly appeal the decision made late Thursday by LaSalle Parish District Judge J.P. Mauffray to revoke Bell’s probation and sentence him to 18 months in juvenile detention on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property.

Bell’s juvenile convictions on those charges preceded and were unrelated to a Dec. 4 assault on a white student at Jena High School for which Bell and five other black students, known as the Jena 6, are still awaiting trial in a case that national civil rights leaders say exemplifies unequal treatment of blacks in the mostly white town.

Mauffray’s ruling Thursday night came just two weeks after he was forced to release Bell on $45,000 bond after the teenager had been jailed for more than nine months on the Dec. 4 charges. A Louisiana appellate court overturned Bell’s aggravated battery conviction in that case on the grounds that Mauffray had improperly allowed the youth to be tried as an adult. The appellate court ordered the case back to juvenile court.

“This is judicial revenge,” said Al Sharpton, one of the civil rights leaders who have taken up the Jena 6 case. “The judge was already defeated once by the appellate court, and now he’s taking his frustrations out on Mychal Bell.”

It was unclear why Mauffray decided to send Bell to jail on the prior charges. The judge has ordered all the proceedings in Bell’s case to be closed and directed all the lawyers in the case not speak about it publicly.

Other experts on Louisiana’s juvenile laws said that Mauffray’s decision to jail Bell on the earlier charges appeared to run counter to the state’s juvenile statutes.

“I don’t know the motivation for this judge and the district attorney, but what they did goes against the grain of our own juvenile code, which holds that home and the community is the best place to treat juveniles,” said David Utter, an attorney and founder of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana. Utter is representing one of the Jena 6 defendants.

Mychal Bell is back behind bars.  This story by Mary Foster of the AP summarizes all the information available.  Judge JP Mauffray could have refused to release Mychal on the basis of his juvenile record; but he decided to yield to public pressure, then snap the young football sensation back into the system at the earliest opportunity.  I will have more to say on this matter as facts emerge.    Mychal Bell of the `Jena 6′ Back in Jail By MARY FOSTER – 4 hours ago NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A judge ordered a black teenager back to jail, deciding the fight that put him in the national spotlight violated terms of his probation for a previous conviction, his attorney said. Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers in the so-called Jena Six case is accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court in Jena on Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of his attorneys. Instead, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced Bell to 18 months in jail on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said. “We are definitely going to appeal this,” she said. “We’ll continue to fight.” Bell had been hit with those charges before the Dec. 4 attack on classmate Justin Barker. Details on the previous charges, which were handled in juvenile court, were unclear. Mauffrey, reached at his home Thursday night, had no comment. “He’s locked up again,” Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. “No bail has been set or nothing. He’s a young man who’s been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it.” After the attack on Barker, Bell was originally charged with attempted murder, but the charges were reduced and he was convicted of battery. An appeals court threw that conviction out, saying Bell should not have been tried as an adult on that charge. Racial tensions began rising in August 2006 in Jena after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended but not prosecuted. More than 20,000 demonstrators gathered last month in the small central Louisiana town to protest what they perceive as differences in how black and white suspects are treated. The case has drawn the attention of civil rights activists including the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Sharpton reacted swiftly upon learning Bell was back in jail Thursday. “We feel this was a cruel and unusual punishment and is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement,” said Sharpton, who helped organize the protest held Sept. 20, the day Bell was originally supposed to be sentenced. Bell’s parents were also ordered to pay all court costs and witness costs, Sharpton said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Jones said. “I don’t know how we’re going to pay for any of this. I don’t know how we’re going to get through this.” Bell and the other five defendants have been charged in the attack on Barker, which left him unconscious and bleeding with facial injuries. According to court testimony, he was repeatedly kicked by a group of students at the high school. Barker was treated for three hours at an emergency room but was able to attend a school function that evening, authorities have said. Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw were all initially charged — as adults — with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit the same. A sixth defendant was charged in the case as a juvenile. Bell, who was 16 at the time, was convicted in June of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime. LaSalle Parish prosecutor Reed Walters reduced the charges just before the trial. Since then, both of those convictions were dismissed and tossed back to juvenile court, where they now are being tried. Charges against Bailey, 18, Jones, 19, and Shaw, 18, have been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery. Purvis, 18, has not yet been arraigned. Associated Press writer Chevel Johnson contributed to this report.

This column from the Afro American Newspaper focuses on an alleged tiff between the Louisiana NAACP and the Rev. Al Sharpton.  Mercifully, I was unaware of these tensions during the rally.  When the big dogs get into the act, the little people who have been on the ground from the drop are reduced to the position of mere spectators.  That was fine with me–I wanted to mingle with the grassroots organizers.  Most of the people who attended the mammoth rally were church people or college students–and, whatever may have been transpiring between the leading light, the hoi poloi had a great time.  As Valencia Mohammad suggests, we need to be focusing on the Jena 6 as a group.  Valuable information concerning the legal calendar is included.

It is true, by the way, that the NAACP of La. learned about this case in January.  I travelled to Baton Rouge with several family members to an NAACP meeting.  We were told that if we wanted help from the NAACP we needed to show our support by forming a local branch.  That meant signing up 100 dues-paying members in a town with only 350 black residents.  Thanks to the families of the Jena 6, led by the redoubtable Caseptla Bailey, we made it happen!

It should also be noted that regular rallies, at Antioch Baptist Church and on the courthouse steps, have been held in Jena since February.  The earliest support for the families of the Jena 6 came from Pastor Brian Moran (who allowed us to use his building), Tory Pegram of the La. ACLU (who has worked tirelessly as a grassroots organizer), King Downing (who helped shape the rallies), Tony Brown (who repeatedly featured the Jena 6 on his Alexandria-based radio show), and, of course, Friends of Justice. 

I worked hard to get Ms. Pegram involved because I knew her to be a dedicated and gifted organizer with a deep love for hurting people.  I have no desire to bash the big boys; but we need to honor and respect the work of grassroots organizers who keep these stories alive during the long, hard months when nobody seems to be listening.

Jena Six Update

All Jena 6 await court; activists spar

By Valencia Mohammed
AFRO Staff Writer

With all the focus primarily on Mychal Bell, one of the youth defendants in the Jena 6 case, many people around the country wonder what has occurred with the remaining teens charged with aggravated second degree battery  for beating a White teenager.

Bell, the first defendant to be tried in court, received lots of international attention with high profile figures including the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King III, congressional and civil rights leaders leading the fray. Radio personalities Michael Baisden and Tom Joyner organized a successful march with 100,000 participants converging on the small town.

Now that Bell has been released and awaits future court appearances, the trials of the other defendants have come under the microscope.

NAACP vs. Al Sharpton

* Theodore Shaw —— According to Robert McDuff, one of three legal representatives for Shaw, there will be a hearing on Nov. 7 and the trial begins on Jan. 28, 2008. Shaw has not received any education since he was expelled by the school board December 2006.

* Ryan Simmons —— has the least amount of charges, according to his attorney William Whatley. His family moved away from Jena, La. No trial date has been set.

* Robert Bailey has more charges than any other defendant. According to his attorney Jim Boren, there will be a motion hearing on Nov. 7. Bailey is set for trial on Nov. 28.

The day after the rally his mother Caseptla Bailey said her son has not received any education since he was expelled. Several attempts to reinstate Bailey have failed. The family still lives in Jena, La.

* Bryan Purvis has a hearing on Nov. 7. According to his mother Tina Jones, he has moved to another state. He attended private school last year. Purvis is attending public school this year.

* Carwin Jones, the youngest member of the group has retained a team of attorneys.

Discord among civil rights leaders

At the Jena 6 rally on Sept. 20 in Jena, La., there was a little known jockeying for power among the civil rights elite.

The Louisiana State Chapter of the NAACP was quietly feuding with the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network based in New York.

A letter was sent by the NAACP to the governor of Louisiana after the march in protest of Sharpton’s demand that the NAACP and only a select group of people be allowed to participate in press conferences.

For three days, several NAACP representatives stood near the courtyard. When Sharpton drove up in his limousine, they said, he greeted the NAACP leaders, walked passed them with his entourage and proceeded towards the cameras. It was obvious something was not running smoothly in the leadership camp.

“It was hard to work with the egos,” said Ernest Johnson, president of the Louisiana State Chapter of the NAACP.

“We saw a draft of a contract between Caseptla Bailey (Mychal Bell’s mother) and Rev. Sharpton, which made us very concerned. It seemed like this was to promote someone’s career,” said Johnson.

In a letter dated Oct.1 to Rev. Sharpton, Johnson accused him of sowing discord by demanding Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Bianco not allow the NAACP members to be present at Mychal Bell’s release from jail.

For the record, the NAACP asserted it had been working on the Jena 6 case since January and was very instrumental in the release of Bell. Johnson claimed Sharpton seemed not to have a clue what to do except keep the media hype going.

Other groups chose to stay out of the media limelight and focus on the issue.

Alan Bean, executive director of Friends of Justice, made 17 trips down to Jena, La., since January after he heard about the case.

“We wanted to get justice for these students by countering false narratives by local media and the judicial system,” said Bean.

Bean said those groups pictured the incident involving the attack of Justin Barker, a White student in Jena and what came before it. “The media tried to portray the Black youth as a group of street thugs who beat Justin simply because he was White. But it was not true and we wanted to get the message out,” said Bean.
Bean said the key to the whole story was the nooses around the tree.

Bean watched as the “media hounds” started coming to town and watched the dynamics from a distance.

“There may have been some groups there with underlying motives. We just wanted to get justice for the kids,” said Bean.

This insightful column from Stephen Ward deals with the complex reality Friends of Justice calls the New Jim Crow.  The preamble catches the key issue: “Established Black leadership has for generations avoided the subject of mass incarceration, or confined itself to preaching and lecturing young people who live under constant surveillance and threat from the criminal justice system.”

This isn’t your daddy’s civil rights movement, Ward insists.  “Nostalgia for the 1960s can also be disempowering for young people who are searching for models of activism and organizing. It tends to re-inscribe the primacy of charismatic leaders like Sharpton and Jackson who take their place at the front of the march, draw the cameras and provide the sound bites. This type of leadership is designed for public spectacle, not serious movement building.”

Let the church say, “Amen!”

Living for Change: The Jena 6 and Black Leadership       

African America – Freedom Movement  Wednesday, 10 October 2007  by Stephen Ward  

The most salient aspects of the recent demonstration in Jena, Louisiana, are the grassroots nature of the protest and massive involvement of African American youth. The plight of the Jena 6 touched young Blacks where they live – in a world “that over-polices and criminalizes Black youth.” Established Black leadership has for generations avoided the subject of mass incarceration, or confined itself to preaching and lecturing young people who live under constant surveillance and threat from the criminal justice system. “To uncover and nurture the emerging black leadership,” the author calls for elders to engage young people directly, to discover how they view their world and how it should be changed.  

Living for Change: The Jena 6 and Black Leadershipby Stephen Ward “Statements from young people saying that they were changed forever through the Jena protest highlight the central importance of transformation in black leadership.” This article originally appeared in the Michigan Citizen. Many people view the September 20 march in Jena as a re-kindling of the spirit of the civil rights movement. With thousands of peaceful marchers, nationally recognized figures (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Martin Luther King III), and the bright lights of the national news media, the march did appear to be in the mode of the 50s and 60s. 

But this should not lead us to view the Jena 6 case as simply a continuation of 1950s racism or to suggest that “nothing has changed.” To do so not only disrespects the efforts of those who made monumental contributions to our struggle and to our society during that period, but also ignores the unique circumstances and great challenges of our time. The aim of today’s struggles should not and cannot be to reproduce the protests of the civil rights era. Those struggles were designed to draw the nation’s attention to the brutal injustice of Jim Crow segregation, mobilize African American communities, and force the federal government to secure the rights of black citizens – with the underlying goal of full access for black people into the institutions of American life.  “The blatant injustice in the Jena 6 case is a manifestation of a 21st century criminal justice system that over-polices and criminalizes black youth.” 

What are the goals of today’s protests? White supremacist ideas and practices still confront us, but the world in which we live and the forces against which we struggle today are in many ways different. Despite obvious similarities, the blatant injustice in the Jena 6 case is not a reflection of 1950s Jim Crow injustice. Rather, it is a manifestation of a 21st century criminal justice system that over-polices and criminalizes black youth. It is not, then, a matter of access to the system, but a need to transform the system.  

Nostalgia for the 1960s can also be disempowering for young people who are searching for models of activism and organizing. It tends to re-inscribe the primacy of charismatic leaders like Sharpton and Jackson who take their place at the front of the march, draw the cameras and provide the sound bites. This type of leadership is designed for public spectacle, not serious movement building. Their talents and commitments notwithstanding, Sharpton and Jackson remain stuck in a mode of protest politics that is increasingly out of line with current realities and challenges.  Which brings us to the wide and impressive participation of young African Americans in the Jena 6 mobilization. To uncover and nurture the emerging black leadership that I believe is inherent in this mobilization, we need to ask young people why so many of them were moved to protest the injustice in Jena.

There are obvious answers – outrage at the unfair treatment of their peers; a basic sense of fairness, etc. But to engage them in a substantive discussion of this question is to seek a deeper understanding of how black youth see the world and their relationship to it and invite them to share their visions for changing the world. We should also ask young people what participation in the march meant to them. They have already begun to tell us.

For example, Michigan Citizen readers will recall that Amber Jeffries, a seventh grade student at Nsoroma, wrote that her participation in the protest “was life changing” (September 30, 2007). University of Michigan students who participated in the protest organized a program titled “From Jim Crow to Jena 6” on Sept. 26 to share their experiences and discuss the meanings of the case. They also described their participation as a powerful, life changing experience.  “We need to ask young people why so many of them were moved to protest the injustice in Jena.” 

These and other statements from young people saying that they were changed forever through this protest highlight the central importance of transformation in black leadership. Let us develop leaders who seek both to transform themselves (that is, to continually grow, develop their capacity for political action, and realize their fullest potential) while also working to transform the society.

 

The Jena 6 case can help to do this if we use it to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue and a substantive, sustained discourse (and mobilization) within black communities around the criminally unjust system – as well as the crisis of our schools (the Jena 6 case, after all, began within the context of a school). In this way we can begin to imagine and engage in struggles to transform these systems so that they work for our youth.Stephen Ward teaches at the University of Michigan and is a member of the Boggs Center board. 

Friends of Justice didn’t stand up for the Jena 6 because we approve of school yard violence. We issued a demand that these cases be transferred out of LaSalle Parish and out of the hands of Judge JP Mauffray and prosecutor Reed Walters. It was neither fair nor appropriate, we argued, that the community that created the context for the assault on Justin Barker should now be adjudicating the fate of his alleged assailants.

In this short piece, Tom Head extends the same argument to town mayor Murphy McMillin.

http://racerelations.about.com/b/a/257608.htm

John Mellencamp Isn’t the Problem

^{by Tom Head, About.com Guide to Civil Liberties}

Photo:

Imagine you’re the mayor of Jena, a small Louisiana town made famous for a series of unprosecuted white-on-black beatings followed by a ludicrously over-the-top prosecution of a black-on-white beating. Basic issues of moral decency and social justice aside, which is the more serious PR problem?

1. John Mellencamp just released a video comparing the Jena Six trials to the show trials and lynchings of the pre-civil rights era.
2. The town mayor gave an interview in which he thanked a white supremacist group for its “moral support.”

Apparently, Jena mayor Murphy McMillin feels that Mr. Mellencamp is the more serious problem. More than two weeks after telling Mississippi white nationalist Richard Barrett how much he appreciates having people in town during the September 20th rally “opposing the colored folks,” McMillin has made no attempt to apologize or otherwise back away from his remarks.

I’ve been trying very hard to give the mayor of Jena and the district attorney of LaSalle Parish the benefit of the doubt, but every time one of them steps in front of a microphone, they make that task more difficult. Both of them have inflammatory remarks of their own to apologize for. John Mellencamp should be the least of their worries.