The
Struggle To Free The Jena Six
By Jordan Flaherty
22 August, 2007
Counterpunch.org
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 then 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." The school assembly, 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 Black
students may not have been involved in the fight, but they were known
to be organizers of the protest under the tree. 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 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 to the fight. The statements do not paint
a clear picture of who was involved. Statements from white students
refer to "Black boys," but many testimonies are unclear as
to the identities of who was involved. Some of the arrested youths are
not implicated in the fight by any of the witnesses.
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. A black
one 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. No serious observer can doubt that the students
of Jena would never have faced charges if a Black student had been beaten
instead of a white student. The unpunished incidents in the days and
months leading up to the fight clearly demonstrate this.
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 and grassroots media
has been vital in spreading word of the case, beginning with blogs and
YouTube videos, which then led to 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 and Louisiana gubernatorial
candidate David Duke received a solid majority of local votes. 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.
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, 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 called members of the state legislative Black
caucus on their behalf.
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
allies 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, and say that we are
drawing the line, here, in Jena Louisiana.
Jordan Flaherty
is an editor of Left Turn Magazine and a community organizer based in
New Orleans. He can be reached at: [email protected]
.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.