An estimated fifty thousand demonstrators marched in Jena, Louisiana in support of the Jena 6 (see this link for details of this blatant case of racial injustice) according to some estimates. We may be seeing the revival of the Civil Rights Movement before our eyes:
Thousands of chanting demonstrators filled the streets of this little Louisiana town Thursday in support of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.
The crowd broke into chants of “Free the Jena Six” as the Rev. Al Sharpton arrived at the local courthouse with family members of the jailed teens.
Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, said the scene was reminiscent of earlier civil rights struggles. He said punishment of some sort may be in order for the six defendants, but “the justice system isn’t applied the same to all crimes and all people.”
The six teens were charged about three months after three white teens hung nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder, but that charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile. The white teens were suspended from school but weren’t prosecuted.
It should be noted that the white victim of this beating, Justin Barker, had allegedly been present in the beating of Robert Bailey, a black student and one of the Jena 6, at a party three days before. Bailey’s white assailants beat him with fists and broken beer bottles. Only one of person who beat Baily was charged with simple assault and he was subsequently given probation.
A day later, Bailey and two friends were confronted by a white male who brandished a shotgun and threatened them at them at a convenience store. After they wrestled the gun away from him they were charged with theft of a firearm, second degree robbery and disorderly conduct. But it was an event two days later at school that triggered the most serious charges against the Jena 6 defendants.
Justin Barker, the white victim of the assault had deliberately taunted Robert Bailey and his friends at school, an incident which triggered their assault against him. These six black students were then charged with attempted murder and felony assault by the white prosecuting attorney. Then same prosecuting attorney, by the way, who had previously warned these black students at a school assembly ringed by police officers (after they had organized a protest regarding the three nooses placed on the “whites only” tree) that he could take their lives away with the stroke of a pen. Of course, we now know how he carried through on his threat, turning a simple school brawl into attempted murder charges (since dropped) and seeking to convict these students as adults for crimes requiring multiple years in prison. This district attorney’s claim that this case is all about obtaining justice for the white victim rings rather hollow in light of these facts.
One student, 16 year old Mychal Bell has already been convicted by a whites only jury and could have been sentenced to 15 years in prison. The only witnesses at his trial were white students, some of whom were admittedly involved in the hanging of the three nooses on the school tree which led to the increase in racial tensions. Bell’s conviction has been suspended by the appeals court which held that Bell should have been tried as a juvenile. The case is currently being appealed further by the prosecuting attorney to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Mychal Bell is still in jail, unable to post bail while the appeal is pending.
This is a major moment in our history. Not since the 1960’s have we seen mass protests of racial injustices of this magnitude. I’m surprised that more progressive blogs are not posting about it, frankly. Hopefully that will change as the story percolates through the blogosphere.
