Thousands Protest Arrests of 6 Blacks in Jena, La.
By RICHARD G. JONES
New York Times
Published: September 21, 2007
JENA, La., Sept. 20 — In a slow-moving march that filled streets, spilled onto sidewalks and stretched for miles, more than 10,000 demonstrators rallied in this small central Louisiana town today to protest the treatment of six black teenagers who were arrested in the beating of a white schoolmate last year.
Chanting slogans from the civil rights era and waving signs, protesters from around the nation converged on Jena, where the charges brought against the high school students have made this otherwise anonymous town of 3,000 a suddenly high-profile arena in the debate over racial bias in the judicial system.
“That’s not prosecution, that’s persecution,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder of the Operation PUSH/Rainbow Coalition and one of the organizers of the demonstration, told a crowd in front of the LaSalle Parish Courthouse here. “We will not stop marching until justice runs down like waters.”
The teenagers, who have come to be known as the Jena Six, are part of a court case that began in December 2006 when they were accused of beating a white classmate, and a local prosecutor charged them with attempted murder. The beating was preceded by of a series of racially charged incidents at the school, including the hanging of nooses from the branch of a tree which some students felt was for white students only.
One of the accused students, Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted in June of aggravated battery and conspiracy. Those charges were tossed out by two different appeals courts, most recently last Friday, but Mr. Bell has not been released from jail. Even as demonstrators were continuing to march through Jena, which is about 85 percent white, a state appellate court ordered an emergency hearing to determine why Mr. Bell has not yet been released.
So far, Mr. Bell is the only one of the Jena Six to be tried, but amid pressure from critics, prosecutors have gradually scaled back many of the charges against the five other defendants.
Although the incident that brought about the case occurred about a year ago, the story of the Jena teenagers has been slow to become part of the national conversation. After Mr. Bell’s conviction, though, the story spread quickly and carried beyond Jena on the currents of the Internet, text messaging and black talk radio until it became part of a nationwide civil rights campaign.
The matter has even drawn the attention of President Bush, who told reporters in Washington today: “Events in Louisiana have saddened me.”
“I understand the emotions,” the president said. “The Justice Department and the F.B.I. are monitoring the situation down there and all of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice.”
Students, particularly those at historically black colleges, have also played a pivotal role in spreading the story, and poured into town after all-night bus rides. Many of them said in interviews that were happy to pick up the torch of the civil rights struggle.
“This is the first time something like this has happened for our generation,”‘ said Eric Depradine, 24, who is a senior at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “You always heard about it from history books and relatives. This is a chance to experience it for ourselves.”
His schoolmate, Charley Caldwell Jr., 22, who is a sophomore, said he was moved to attend today’s rally by the details that have emerged in the case.
“When I first heard about it, I thought it was obscene, so I felt I had to come,” he said. “When we got here, there’s nothing but white people and they aren’t used to seeing this many people of color.”
The story of the Jena case also resonated for those who have not yet reached college.
April Jones, 17, who traveled to Jena with her parents, Diana and Derrick from Atlanta, said she saw the issue as a matter of basic fairness. She could not understand why the students who hung the nooses were not punished severely; the students were suspended briefly from Jena High School, and on Wednesday, the district attorney, Reed Walters, said the act appeared to violate no state law.
“I just feel like every time the white people did something, they dropped it, and every time the black people did something, they blew it out of proportion,” she said.
In his remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Walters was sharply critical of the nooses. “I cannot overemphasize what a villainous act that was,” he said. “The people that did it should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town.”
But one marcher, Latese Brown, 40, of Alexandria, La., saw it differently. “If you can figure out how to make a school yard fight into an attempted murder charge,” she said, “I’m sure you can figure out how to make stringing nooses into a hate crime.”
