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Date: Tue, 14 Aug:58:22 -0500
From: jordan flaherty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Racism and Resistance:
The Struggle to Free The Jena Six
By Jordan Flaherty
August 14, 2007
Almost a year ago, in the small northern Louisiana town of Jena, a group
of white students hung three nooses from a tree in front of Jena High
School. This set into motion a season of racial tension and incidents
that culminated in six Black youths facing a lifetime in jail for a
schoolyard fight.
The story that has unfolded since is one of racism and injustice, but
also of resistance and solidarity, as people from around the world have
joined together with the families of the accused, lending legal and
financial support, adding political pressure, and joining demonstrations
and marches.
The nooses were hung after a Black student asked permission to sit under
a tree that had been reserved by tradition for white students only. In
response to the three nooses, nearly every Black student in the school
stood under the tree in a spontaneous and powerful act of nonviolent
protest. The town's district attorney quickly arrived, flanked by
police officers, and told the Black students to stop making such a big
deal over the nooses, which school officials termed to be a "harmless
prank." Walters spoke in a school assembly, which like the schoolyard
where all of this had begun was divided by race, with the Black students
on one side and the white students on the other. Directing his remarks
to the Black students, District Attorney Reed Walters said, "I can make
your lives disappear with a stroke of a pen."
The white students who confessed to hanging the nooses never received
any meaningful punishment. Nor did the white students who months later
beat up a Black student at a school party, nor did the white former
student who threatened two Black students with a shotgun. But, after
these incidents, when Black students got into a fight with a white
student, six Black youths were charged with attempted murder, and now
face a lifetime in prison. The white student was briefly hospitalized,
but had no major injuries and was socializing with friends at a school
ring ceremony the evening of the fight. The accused students may not
have been involved in the fight, but they were known to be organizers of
the protest under the tree. They were also star athletes in the school
football team, and had no history of discipline problems.
The Black students were arrested immediately after the fight, in
December of last year. School officials and police officials took
statements from at least 44 witnesses. The statements do not paint a
clear picture of who was in the fight. Statements from white students
refer to a group of "Black boys," but most testimonies are unclear as to
the identities of who was involved. Some of the arrested youths are not
implicated in the fight at all.
Despite this, when Mychal Bell, the first youth to go to trial, refused
to take a deal in exchange for testifying against his friends, he was
quickly convicted by an all-white jury. Bell's public defender Blane
Williams, visibly angry at Bell and his parents because the youth did
not take the deal, called no witnesses and gave no meaningful defense.
This attorney's behavior gives a vivid example of our nation's broken
and underfunded public defender system. Some have called Jena a
throwback to the past, but in fact Jena presents a clear vision of the
current state of our criminal justice system.
In Paris Texas, a white teenager burns down her family's home and
receives probation, while a Black student shoves a hall monitor and gets
7 years in prison. Genarlow Wilson, in Atlanta, is sentenced to ten
years in prison for participating in consensual oral sex with a 15 year
old when he was 17. Like these and many other cases, the case in Jena
is textbook proof that there are still two systems of justice
functioning in this country, one for Black people, and one for white.
The unpunished incidents in the days and months leading up to the fight
clearly demonstrate that the students of Jena would never have faced
charges if white students had beaten a Black student.
Local Resistance
Immediately after the arrests, parents of the accused began organizing.
Their call, "Free the Jena Six," was initially heard by activists from
other parts of Louisiana, such as the Lafayette public access TV show,
"Community Defender," which was the first media from outside their
immediate area to give coverage of the case. Noncorporate media has
been vital in spreading word of the case, beginning with blogs and
YouTube videos, which then led to articles in grassroots publications
and high profile stories on Democracy Now and in The Final Call.
LaSalle parish, where Jena is located, is 85% white. The town is still
mostly segregated - from the white barber who refuses to cut Black hair
to the white and Black parts of town, separated by an invisible line.
LaSalle is also one of Louisiana's most wealthy parishes, with small oil
rigs in many back yards contributing to area wealth. The parish is a
major contributor to Republican politicians, and former klansman David
Duke received a solid majority of local votes when he ran for governor
in 1991 - in fact, he received a higher percentage of votes in LaSalle
parish than in any other part the state. Jena was also the former site
of a notoriously brutal youth prison, which was closed after years of
lawsuits and negative media exposure. The prison is now scheduled to be
reopened as a private prison for the growth business of immigrant
detentions.
Only one church in town has allowed the parents to hold meetings. There
has been local pressure on family members and their allies to stay
quiet. However, in the face of opposition, their voice has grown
louder. Without an infrastructure of support, without any paid
organizers, this struggle was initiated and is still led by six
courageous families.
Three hundred supporters, most from the immediate region, but some from
as far away as California, Chicago and New York, descended on Jena on
July 31 to protest District Attorney Reed Walters' conduct and call for
dismissal of all charges. The largest groups included Millions More
Movement delegations from Houston, Monroe and Shreveport, and nearly
fifty members of Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated
Children from Lake Charles and New Orleans. Other delegations from
across Louisiana included members of INCITE Women of Color Against
Violence, Critical Resistance, Common Ground and Malcolm X Grassroots
Movement. The demonstration marched through downtown Jena - reported to
be the biggest civil rights march the town of 2,500 residents has ever
seen - and delivered a petition with 43,000 signatures to the District
Attorney's office.
In the two weeks since the demonstration, more major allies have begun
to come on board. The Congressional Black Caucus - representing 43
members, including Senator Barack Obama - issued a statement calling for
charges to be dropped, while the city of Cambridge Massachusetts passed
a resolution in support of the families of the Jena Six. Al Sharpton and
other national leaders have visited Jena, while Jesse Jackson brought
the support of members of the state legislative Black caucus.
ColorOfChange.org, which has coordinated much of the outside support,
has gathered 60,000 signatures on a petition to Louisiana Governor
Blanco, calling for her to pardon the accused, and investigate District
Attorney Reed Walters.
Blanco, a Democratic governor elected with the overwhelming support of
Black residents of Louisiana, responded with a condescending statement,
tersely informing petitioners, "The State Constitution provides for
three branches of state government - Legislative, Executive, and
Judicial - and the Constitution prohibits anyone in one branch from
exercising the powers of anyone in another branch." This is the same
governor who, as Katrina approached, urged gulf coast residents to "pray
the hurricane down" to a level two. When New Orleans was flooded and
people were trapped in the New Orleans Superdome and convention center,
she informed the nation that she was sending in National Guard troops,
and "They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded. These troops know
how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I
expect they will." More recently, Blanco created a program to bring
federal money to homeowners rebuilding after Katrina – the "Road Home" –
that has been a dismal failure on every level.
Mychal Bell's sentencing is currently scheduled for September 20. The
families are planning another demonstration for that date, and also have
assembled a legal team for Bell and the other youths. National
organizations such as Southern Poverty Law Center and NAACP joined
initial supporters such as Friends of Justice (from Tulia, Texas) and
ACLU of Louisiana. Legal expenses for the youths could be hundreds of
thousands of dollars, and funding is still needed. Except for Mychal
Bell, who has a bail hearing scheduled for September 4, all of the
youths are out on bail.
The case of Jena Six has served as a wake-up call on the state of US
justice. It shows vividly the racial bias still inherent to our
system. But is has also shown something else. That this group of
families refuses to be silent in the face of injustice, and that
hundreds of thousands of other people around the world have chosen to
stand with them. Together they have said that we are drawing the line,
here, in Jena Louisiana.
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Jordan Flaherty is a New Orleans-based journalist and an editor of Left
Turn Magazine. His May 9, 2007 article from Jena was one of the first
to bring the case to a national audience. Please see http://
<http://www.leftturn.org>www.leftturn.org <http://www.leftturn.org> and
http://www.freethejena6.org/ for more coverage of the Jena case.
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Resources:
Donate to support the legal defense fund:
Jena 6 Defense Committee
PO BOX 2798
Jena, LA 71342
Donate online at: https://secure.colorofchange.org/jena_fund/
Sign the petition at: http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/
For more information or to offer concrete support, email:
jena6defense(at)gmail.com
Media coverage:
The Final Call:
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3753.shtml
NPR (News and Notes):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11756302
Democracy Now:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413220
<http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413220>
Mychal Bell, who has been behind bars since December of 2006, has asked
to receive letters from supporters. Please write to:
Mychal Bell
Inmate, A-Dorm
LaSalle Correctional Center
15976 Highway 165
Olla, LA
Congressional Black Caucus resolution:
http://www.congressionalblackcaucus.net/
<http://www.congressionalblackcaucus.net/>
Cambridge, MA, city council resolution:
http://www.cambridgema.gov/cityClerk/PolicyOrder.cfm?action=search&item_id=18831
<http://www.cambridgema.gov/cityClerk/PolicyOrder.cfm?action=search&item_id=18831>
New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE - http://www.nycore.org
<http://www.nycore.org>) is teaming up with other teacher activist
groups across the country to develop a curriculum guide for teachers to
address what's happening in Jena. Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
Support Organizations:
http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/
http://www.colorofchange.org
http://www.millionsmoremovement.com
http://www.laaclu.org/
YouTube videos in support of the Jena Six:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpOBKTwkIoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebGY2XONJVM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY
Please support independent media! Subscribe to Left Turn Magazine.
www.leftturn.org <http://www.leftturn.org>.
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