White supremacist backlash builds over Jena case

By Howard Witt

Tribune senior correspondent

6:59 PM CDT, September 24, 2007

HOUSTON

No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.

First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and “drag them out of the house,” prompting an investigation by the FBI.

Then the leader of a white supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to “realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind.”

Over the weekend, white extremist Web sites and blogs across the Internet filled with invective about the Jena 6 case, which has drawn scrutiny from civil rights leaders, three leading Democratic presidential candidates and hundreds of African-American Internet bloggers. They are concerned about allegations that blacks have been treated more harshly than whites in the criminal justice system of the town of 3,000, which is 85 percent white.

David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, last week announced his support for Jena’s white residents, who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor in 1991.

“There is a major white supremacist backlash building,” said Mark Potok, a hate-group expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group in Montgomery, Ala. “I also think it’s more widespread than may be obvious to most people. It’s not only neo-nazis and Klansmen—you expect this kind of reaction from them.”

Controversy over the Jena 6 case has been percolating for months but it exploded into national view last Thursday when a crowd of at least 20,000 peaceful demonstrators from around the country marched through the central Louisiana town.

They came to support the six black high school students who were initially charged by the local prosecutor with attempted murder for attacking Barker, a white classmate who was beaten and knocked briefly unconscious last December. The charges were later reduced to aggravated second-degree battery.

The incident capped months of racial unrest after three white students hung nooses from a shade tree at the high school after black students asked permission to sit under it. School officials dismissed the noose incident as a prank, angering black students and their parents and triggering a series of fights between whites and blacks. The whites involved were charged with misdemeanors or not at all while the blacks drew various felony charges.

McMillin has insisted that his town is being unfairly portrayed as racist—an assertion the mayor repeated in an interview with Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist group based in Learned, Miss., who asked McMillin to “set aside some place for those opposing the colored folks.”

“I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do,” Barrett quoted McMillin as saying. “Your moral support means a lot.”

McMillin declined to return calls seeking comment Monday.

Barker’s father, David, said his family did not know the nature of Barrett’s group when they agreed to be interviewed, adding, “I am not a white supremacist, and neither is my son.”

But Barrett said he explained his group and its beliefs to the Barker family, who then invited him to stay overnight at their home on the eve of last week’s protest march.

Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Tribune that he had grown so concerned about white extremists’ threats against the Jena 6 families and perceived injustices in the town that he called the White House over the weekend to ask for immediate federal intervention. Jackson said the acting head of the U.S. Justice Department’s civil right division phoned him Monday to say that the agency had begun investigating the Jena situation.

hwitt@tribune.com

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

September 23 Update from Jena:
Situation Intensifies as Reactionary Backlash Follows Historic Protest

Sunday, September 23, Jena, Louisiana. In the last three days, since tens of thousands from all over the country converged on the town to demand that the Jena 6 be freed, the situation has intensified.

In the late afternoon, after a full day of rallies and marches, buses of people had taken people to nearby Alexandria for a closing rally, music, and celebration of the day’s events. Some white racists repeatedly drove by demonstrators with nooses hanging from the back of their pickup truck. The driver of the truck with nooses in Alexandria, 18-year-old Jeremiah Munsen, and the passenger, a 16-year-old minor, were arrested. Brass knuckles and an unloaded rifle were found in the vehicle. Munsen was arrested on the grounds of inciting a riot, driving while intoxicated, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. While in custody the juvenile told authorities that he had “KKK” tattooed on his chest and that his relatives were involved in the KKK.

The next day, as tens of thousands of people had just returned home from demonstrating in Jena, there was a new outrage in the courtroom. At a hearing on Friday, the judge refused to release Mychal Bell on bond—so he is still being held in jail, even though his conviction has been overturned (see the news flash “New Outrage in the Jena 6 Case: Mychal Bell Not Granted Bond”).

Starting on September 20, a number of white supremacist websites put up all kinds of racist, hateful slurs about the Jena 6 case. And they delivered a blatant, murderous threat – posting the names, phone numbers, and addresses of family members of the Jena 6, basically putting out a call for racist vigilantes to take action.

A statement from Al Sharpton, who has been in communication with the families, says some family members have received “almost around the clock calls of threats and harassment.”

On September 22, The Town Talk, a newspaper in Alexandria, reported that Justin Barker, the white student involved in the schoolyard fight at Jena High, and his parents had given an interview to the editor of a white supremacist publication called the Nationalist. The Nationalist’s editor Richard Barrett also interviewed Jena Mayor Murphy McMillan. In that interview Barrett says he “would like to arrange to set aside some place for those opposing the colored folks or find out if you have such a place in mind.” According to The Town Talk, McMillan said a few moments later, “I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do. We will be aware that you are coming.”

In response to these new developments, the FBI has inserted themselves even more directly into the situation and announced that they are “investigating” the threats. This presence and involvement by the FBI is definitely NOT a good thing for the people and for the struggle. People should remember how during a town hall meeting in Jena on July 26, 2007, just before Mychal Bell was convicted, the FBI declared that they have had agents in Jena since a week or so after the nooses were hung at Jena High. And how after this, a representative of the U.S. Justice Department came to Jena and declared that the whole way things were being handled with the Jena 6 was “regular” and not “irregular.”

The FBI has a history of infiltrating, sabotaging, and destroying political movements and forces that are a threat to the system, including through outright murder of activists and those seen as leaders of the masses, especially with the COINTELPRO program of the 1960s that targeted the civil rights movement, Black liberation struggle, and revolutionary groups. They have infiltrated groups like the KKK and other right-wing organizations—and actually participated in reactionary attacks on the masses.

The initial gains in this case, like the conviction of Mychal Bell being overturned, only happened because of the power of the people’s struggle. And September 20 was an historic and powerful day that reverberated far and wide. The struggle to Free the Jena 6 took an important leap on this day, manifesting people’s outrage and determination to fight until the Jena 6 are free. The backlash to this—the system’s refusal to release Mychal Bell from jail; the continuing efforts to prosecute the five other Black youth; and the vicious KKK attacks and threats—all underscore the importance of this struggle getting broader, bigger, and more determined. And the people need to respond to these new attacks with even more resolve and new plans for how to take the political struggle to free the Jena 6 higher. We cannot allow the Jena 6, their family members, the Black community of Jena, and all those involved in the movement to Free the Jena 6 to be threatened, intimidated, and attacked in any way.

Send us your comments.

New Outrage in the Jena 6 Case:
Mychal Bell Not Granted Bond

by Alice Woodward

On September 21, 17-year-old Mychal Bell, who has been in prison since December 4, 2006 and was the first of the Jena 6 to be convicted, was not granted bond by the court. He still remains in jail. This new outrage came the day after tens of thousands of people from all over the country converged on Jena, Louisiana to demand that the Jena 6 be freed. The lawyers could not comment further on the situation and at this time there is no information as far as to the next step of the legal battle.

Outside the LaSalle Parish courthouse people waited to hear the results of the court hearing. Community members, young and old, the media, and supporters of Jena 6, who had stayed in the area from the protest the day before, sat on the lawn and lined the blockade outside the courthouse eagerly anticipating the decision.

When Melissa Bell, Mychal’s mother emerged from the courthouse tearful, surrounded by family, people shouted from the lawn: “Stay strong!” “We’re with you 100 percent.” “We ain’t going nowhere.” “We’re gonna be back until this is over.” People followed after her chanting “No Justice, No Peace!” with their fists in the air. King Downing, a National Coordinator from the ACLU, said, “I have the feeling that people will feel they need to get back to Jena”—referring to the tens of thousands of people who demonstrated the day before in Jena. He talked about how all these people will be returning to their homes across the country after demanding “Free The Jena Six! Drop all the Charges!” and then finding out that Mychal Bell will not be released. And he said, “We need to get ready to come back.”

This new development in the case underscores even more the fact that this struggle to free the Jena 6 must go forward and grow. Revolution newspaper has heard reports that in response to this latest outrage, people widely are calling for protests—from high school students wearing black in support of the Jena 6 starting this Monday, to informal street rallies and organized meetings.

Send us your comments.

Sept. 20, Jena, Louisiana:

Tens of Thousands Demand “Free the Jena 6!”

by Alice Woodward

The sun had not even come up, it was still dark, and the small town of Jena, Louisiana was already different than it had ever been before. Thousands were already streaming in, tens of thousands were on their way. The usually lonely two-lane country highway was clogged with traffic bumper to bumper. Cars were already starting to park every which way, people piling out and walking toward the convergences. Motorcycle clubs roaring in. Windows of cars sporting hand-painted signs: “Jena Bound, Follow Us,” “Journey to Jena,” and “Jena 6—We got your back.”

The groundswell of outrage and grassroots organizing that had been steadily, and then by leaps and bounds, growing over the last few weeks was coming together—manifesting in a powerful, visible, and concrete way.

By 5:30 a.m. downtown Jena was packed with people. City officials had declared a state of emergency and most businesses were closed. A lot of people in buses had come in the night before and stayed in nearby Alexandria. Other buses had driven all night and were joining a big caravan into Jena.

People quickly filled the lawn, the sidewalks, and out into First Street from the LaSalle Parish courthouse to nearby Jena High School—the scene of the crime, where the nooses had been hung and where Black students had taken a courageous stand against racism. When people marched over to the place where the “Whites-Only Tree” had stood and then later removed by school officials, many people knelt down and touched the ground. At the same time, in Ward Park about two miles way, a crowd of 1500 gathered to rally and then march over to the courthouse. Then people got back on buses headed for Alexandria for another rally before heading home.

The outrage, determination, and creativity of the people was evident wherever you looked. There were groups of people, especially students, and individuals who just heard about this and felt they had to go to Jena and organize others to come as well. One journalist from New York City commented, “It’s so amazing how people found out about this and ‘self-organized.’”

The word had gotten out to “wear black” and just about everyone had black t-shirts. Everywhere you looked groups of people were standing together—wearing the unique t-shirts they had made, carrying home-made signs, to express the struggle to Free the Jena 6: “Enough is Enough,” “Stop the ‘Jenacide,’” “Release to the Captives,” “Get to the Root of the Problem,” “Jena Six Did What Was Right!” “Jena Six, Harlem’s Got Your Back,” “The noose is loose, handcuff free clothing, Free the Jena Six!” “No room for racism.”

Everywhere people were asking others where they had come from, happy and surprised when they found out how buses of people had come from as far away as California and New York. When a lot of the buses were stuck on the road, unable to get to the rally, a woman from Philadelphia said: “We can’t allow them to derail why we came here which is to free the Jena Six, to get Mychal Bell out of jail. That’s why we came here all the way from Philadelphia, from Texas, from Los Angeles, from New York, from Baltimore, from all over this country, that’s what we’re here for.”

When one man was being interviewed by a Revolution reporter, he handed us his camera and asked that we video it for him—he wanted a record for his five-day-old granddaughter to show to her friends when she got older, showing that her grandfather had been part of this historic event.

Indeed, as people headed home, there was a real sense that HISTORY HAD BEEN MADE. Many people talked about how this was the beginning of something that was long overdue, the beginning of a new movement. And as people got back on the bus, there was a feeling that all that had been manifest on this day now had to be spread and built on to continue the struggle, even bigger and farther, to Free the Jena 6.

UPDATE ON THE JENA 6 CASE: In the afternoon of Sept. 20, news broke that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana had ordered that a bond hearing be held for Mychal Bell within 72 hours time. Attorney Bob Noel reported to CNN that this means the legal team will go before the court for a hearing which will determine whether Mychal can be released on bond and what amount the bond will be set at. Mychal Bell has been in prison since he was first arrested on December 4, 2006, his bond set at $90,000. On September 4 a bond hearing was held where the judge denied bond and further criminalized Mychal Bell. The judge compared the Black community to a “fence erected around the cattle,” when they gave their word before the court that Mychal Bell would be cared for upon release. The judge and the District Attorney brought out Mychal Bell’s so-called “criminal record” of minor juvenile offenses. A week before, as it became clear that thousands would be coming to Jena to demonstrate in support of the Jena 6, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals had reversed Bell’s conviction. The DA has subsequently made it clear that he intends to press forward with the prosecution of the Jena 6.

Hank Brown and Li Onesto contributed to this report.

This article is posted in English and Spanish at http://revcom.us

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Thousands march on Jena

Posted by Darran Simon September 20, 2007 4:45PM

By Darran Simon
Staff writer

JENA - Thousands marched through the streets Thursday swelling the population of this small town in support of the Jena Six. Some protestors held hands, and walked eight abreast, shouting “No Justice No Peace,” and singing “I’m Black and I’m Proud.”

Hailing from as far as Philadelphia and England, they rode buses overnight that caravanned into the town around sunrise to rally behind a group of black teenagers who had faced attempted murder charges for beating a white classmate in December.

Louisiana NAACP marshals kept order, made sure rows were spaced out, and wouldn’t let the crowd move until they complied. Members of the NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Council and Nation of Islam locked hands on both sides of the marchers, at points, guiding the procession through the throngs of people lining the roadway.

“Just as Selma was about the right to vote, and Little Rock was about the right to first class schools, this is about fairness in the criminal justice, which is increasingly unfair,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson. “Criminal justice has become an industry … as in Angola.”

Many in the community of 3,000 seemed to have skipped town for a day or stayed inside. Businesses closed Thursday. Vandals stuffed paper towels down the toilet bowl of one restaurant that opened, forcing it to close briefly. Protestors engulfed Jena creating a sea of black shirts along the two mile trek to the La Salle Parish Courthouse. There, people climbed trees for a better view, bowed their heads, held hands and prayed with Jackson.

“Our agenda. One agenda. Free Mychal Bell and drop the charges now,” said Jackson, who made the crowd repeat after him.

Bell was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit the crime in June. A judge threw out the conspiracy charge, and an appeals court recently ruled that Bell should have been charged as a juvenile rather than an adult because he was 16 at the time of the crime.

Four other teenagers face aggravated battery charges. The five initially faced attempted murder charges. Charges against a juvenile haven’t been made public. Two teenagers — Robert Bailey Jr. and Theo Shaw — declined comment Wednesday.

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin made the trip to Jena as wel.
“I am sick and tired of unfairness in our country,” Nagin told the crowd Thursday in front of the LaSalle Parish Courthouse.

Critics of the case have said the six teenagers were the victim of an overzealous and discriminatory district attorney.

Alan Bean, founder and director of The Friends of Justice, a faith based criminal justice reform group, said the organization is concerned about the “new Jim Crow — using the criminal justice system to control the consequences of poverty.”

“On the surface, this appears to be a story about the old Jim Crow - which was using terror to reinforce the color line. I think what they were doing was using the dynamics of the new Jim Crow - using the criminal justice system — to reinforce the old Jim crow,” said Bean, who helped piece together a timeline of the case through interviews and had been to Jena 16 times since earlier this year.

Jackson said a group would remain at the courthouse to wait until Mychal Bell is brought out. It’s unclear if Bell was in the imprisoned in the courthouse. Bell remains in jail as the prosecuters prepare an appeal.

“Mychal Bell, we know you hear us. Hang on a little while longer,” Jackson said, the crowd again repeating after him.

People crowded around Jackson along the march, snapping pictures, yelling his name so that he could look their way. Many didn’t have a familial connection to the Jena Six, but still felt a kinship and emotive draw to the teenagers’ plight. Mothers said they saw their son’s in Bells place.

“It was time for a march,” said Rosalind Jones, 53, of Gulfport, Miss.

The Memphis native remembers marching with Martin Luther King Jr. as a girl during the civil rights era, and with her grandmother, an active member of the AFL-CIO there.

“I was taught to feel this way from my grandmother,” Jones said

The fight was the culmination of series of racial taunts and confrontations involving Robert Bailey after black students found nooses hanging on an oak tree. The students who hung the nooses were given in-school suspension by the parish superintendent, rather than an expulsion, as recommended by the principal.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco has been “working behind the scenes” on the Jena case to express her concerns to law enforcement officials about the state’s perception in the national eye, as well as about the need for the legal process to proceed fairly, according to her press spokeswoman Marie Centanni. Blanco recently made calls to the local district attorney, the U.S. Attorney for the region and the state attorney general about the case.

Although the state Constitution limits her influence on the legal process, Blanco has urged a reconciliation among the parties, Blanco said.

“We in Louisiana believe there is no place for racism in our society,” Blanco said during a conference call with the media Thursday while on an economic development mission in Spain.

“The legal system is obviously correcting what it thought was an unfair or incorrect application of the law,” said Blanco, referring to recent court decisions favorable to the accused.

Blanco said she hoped that the events would not lead to sweeping generalizations about racism in Louisiana. “I don’t think that the entire community (of Jena) should be indicted, nor do I think the entire state should be indicted,” Blanco said.

One of the candidates in the governor’s race, John Georges, attended the Jena rally on Thursday and handed out cold water to marchers. Democrats Foster Campbell and Walter Boasso and Republican Bobby Jindal did not attend due to previous campaign commitments.

<!– | –>

from the BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE:

State Police officer reports Jena rally and march were ‘uneventful’

Thousands rally in La. for Jena 6

By MARY FOSTER
Associated Press writer
Published: Sep 20, 2007 - UPDATED: 11:05 a.m.

JENA, La. (AP) — Thousands of chanting demonstrators filled the streets of this little Louisiana town Thursday in a massive show of support for six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.

Throngs of black-clad protesters jammed the grounds of the local courthouse and a nearby park while thousands more marched along city streets in what at times took on the atmosphere of a giant festival - with people setting up tables of food and some dancing to the beat of a man playing a drum.

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 arrested 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 amid racial tensions that had been growing after the local prosecutor declined to charge three white teens who hung nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder in the December beating, but that charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.

“This is the most blatant example of disparity in the justice system that we’ve seen,” Sharpton told CBS’s “The Early Show” before arriving in Jena. “You can’t have two standards of justice.”

“We didn’t bring race into it,” he said. “Those that hung the nooses brought the race into it.”

Sharpton, who helped organized the rally, said this could be the beginning of the 21st century’s civil rights movement, one that would challenge disparities in the justice system.

The district attorney who is prosecution the teens, Reed Walters, denied on Wednesday that racism was involved in the charges.

He said he didn’t charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no Louisiana law under which they could be charged. In the beating case, he said, four of the defendants were of adult age under Louisiana law and the only juvenile charged as an adult, Mychal Bell, had a prior criminal record.

“It is not and never has been about race,” Walters said. “It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions.”

The beating victim, Justin Barker, was knocked unconscious, his face badly swollen and bloodied, though he was able to attend a school function later that night.

Bell, 16 at the time of the attack, is the only one of the “Jena Six” to be tried so far. He was convicted on an aggravated second-degree battery count that could have sent him to prison for 15 years, but the conviction was overturned last week when a state appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult.

Thursday’s protest had been planned to coincide with Bell’s sentencing, but organizers decided to press ahead even after the conviction was thrown out. Bell remains jailed while prosecutors prepare an appeal. He has been unable to meet the $90,000 bond.

“We all have family members about the age of these guys. We said it could have been one of them. We wanted to try to do something,” said Angela Merrick, 36, who drove with three friends from Atlanta to protest the treatment of the teens.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke to a crowd Thursday morning. Dennis Courtland Hayes, interim president and CEO of the NAACP, compared the outcry over the Jena arrests to the controversy that followed racial remarks by radio personality Don Imus.

“People are saying, `That’s enough, and we’re not taking it any more,’” Hayes said.

The rally was heavily promoted on black Web sites, blogs, radio and publications. State police declined to give crowd estimates, but participants at the park and the courthouse appeared to number in the thousands.

Sharpton admonished the demonstrators to remain peaceful, and there were no reports of trouble as of midmorning. Many white residents in the predominantly white town of 3,000 have complained that the town was being unfairly portrayed as racist.

“This doesn’t offend me. I’m glad they’re doing it. I believe in people standing up for what’s right,” one white resident, Ricky Coleman, 46, said as he watched the rallies. “What bothers me is this town being labeled racist. I’m not racist.”

“I don’t think these folks have a clue what’s happened here,” said Kenny Robertson, 50. “This is a good town. I was born and raised here. We’re not racists,” Robertson said. “When all you foreigners get out of here, things will go back to normal.”

A group of about a dozen white residents and black demonstrators engaged in an animated but not angry exchange during the march. Whites asked blacks if they were aware of Bell’s criminal record, blacks replying that Jena High School administrators had mishandled the incidents at the school.

Another white resident, Bill Williamson, 59, said he spent much of the morning trying to convince black visitors that the town was being treated unfairly and that Mychal Bell belongs in jail. “I think we changed one man’s mind. He listened and found out something about it. But most of these people don’t want to hear,” Williamson said.

The demonstrators included large numbers of civil rights movement veterans and college students from across the region who weren’t alive in the ’60s.

Elizabeth Redding, 63, of Willinboro, N.J. said she marched at Selma, Ala., when she was in her 20s.

“This is worse, because we didn’t get the job done,” she said as she trudged up a hill leading to the park rally. “I never believed that this would be going on in 2007.”

Tina Cheatham missed the civil rights marches at Selma, Montgomery and Little Rock, but she had no intention of missing another brush with history. The 24-year-old Georgia Southern University graduate drove all night to reach tiny Jena in central Louisiana.

“It was a good chance to be part of something historic since I wasn’t around for the civil rights movement. This is kind of the 21st century version of it,” she said.

Red Cross officials manned first aid stations near the local courthouse and had water and snacks available. Portable toilets and flashing street signs to aid in traffic direction were in place. At the courthouse, troopers chatted amiably with each other and with demonstrators who began showing up well before dawn.

Sharpton said Bell, whom he spoke with Wednesday, was heartened by the show of support.

“He doesn’t want anything done that would disparage his name - no violence, not even a negative word,” Sharpton said.

Reginne Gardner, 38, a black Jena resident, collected cash from protesters who parked their cars on the lawn of a relative’s home. Gardner said race relations in town have always been strained, but have grown even worse since this episode unfolded.

“I hope this makes things better,” she said. “We all have to live here. I wish we all could get along, black and white.”

—

Associated Press writers Michael Kunzelman in Jena and Errin Haines in Atlanta contributed to this story.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

March puts Jena on the map

Posted by NOLA.com September 19, 2007 10:18PM

By Darran Simon
Staff writer

Robert Bailey Jr., one of the Jena Six, turned 18 Wednesday. He got a chain from his girlfriend as a gift and tossed a football in front of his home.

Bailey’s mother, Capseptla Bailey, planned to buy some catfish and shrimp for a fish fry and open her mobile home Wednesday night to supporters, some strangers, who have stood with the family.

The calm of their everyday lives seemed to bely the controversy brewing around the teenager and five others expected to draw potentially tens of thousands from across the country to their small, rural town.

Throughout Jena, preparations were being made for today’s march and benefit concert. One downtown business hung a window sign announcing will be closed today. Television news trucks parked outside the LaSalle Parish courthouse. Two members of the rap Group Salt & Pepa visited Bailey, with cameras in tow, filming for a VH1 show. Common Ground, a grassroots New Orleans-based organization planned to camp out behind Bailey’s home Wednesday night. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are scheduled to be at the fish fry to show support of the Jena Six, a group of black teenagers who faced felony charges after they allegedly beat a white classmate last school year.

“We’re just praying and hoping for the best, walking through faith, that’s how I made it this far,” said Capseptla Bailey.

Thousands of people are expected to arrive in Jena today from across the country to join the Bailys and the families of the five others who were subsequently charged with attempted murder. They’re arriving to protest what they say are excessive criminal charges filed against the boys.

Critics allege the cases show authorities in this predominantly white town are disproportionately harsh toward blacks. District Attorney Reed Walters, breaking a long public silence Wednesday at a news conference, denied racism was involved.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and the Rev. Jesse Jackson are among the civil rights leaders who have rallied protestors and will lead thousands on a march the the streets of Jena, a town of 3,000, that most had probably never heard of a year ago.

“We want people to come in peace. We want people to remain in peace and in order, and to leave in peace,” Robert Bailey Sr. said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center warned in news releases Wednesday that they found several postings on white supremacist Web sites indicating counter-demonstrations may be held today.

The organization said it contacted the Louisiana State Police.

Sgt. Markus Smith, spokesman for the Lousiana State Police, said there have a “considerable” number of state troopers on hand.

Smith said the law enforcement agency doesn’t expect violence and has been working with the NAACP, who Smith said seemed to have things “well coordinated.”

Robert Bailey Jr. said he wanted to speak but declined on the advice of his lawyer. Bailey’s co-defendant, Theo Shaw, also declined to talk. The two just tossed a football.

“He went to jail at 17, and he has grown to be a man,” said Capseptla Bailey. “He has good and bad days.”

She said her son wants to finish high school and get his diploma. He isn’t in school now.

“We’re just praying and hoping for the best, walking through faith. “That’s how I made it this far,” she said.

The school fight last December was a culmination of slew of racial taunts, confrontations, and a protest from black students after they found nooses hanging under an oak tree where white students usually gathered. The tree has since been cut down.

“You can’t even see the roots,” said Nicholas McCoy, 15, Shaw’s brother.

Businesses and schools are expected to close today.

One family restaurant known for its catfish, J.J’s, is planning to stay open, said its owner Ben Rabel, 50.

“I don’t expect any trouble. Basically when you don’t expect trouble, you don’t get trouble,” he said.

J.J’s is located in a predominantly black section of Jena.

“People in the community .¤.¤. said they would take care of me,” he said.

Months after declining to charge three white high school students who were briefly suspended for hanging nooses in a tree, local prosecutors charged five of the six with attempted second-degree murder in the beating of a white student. The sixth defendant’s case is sealed because he is charged as a juvenile.

Walters said the suffering of the beating victim, Justin Barker, has been largely ignored. Barker was knocked unconscious, his face badly swollen and bloodied, though he was able to attend a school function that night.

“With all the emphasis on the defendant, the injury done to him and the serious threat to his existence has become a footnote,” Walters said of Barker, who accompanied the prosecutor but declined to speak.

Walters also said the reason he did not prosecute the students accused of hanging the nooses is because he could find no Louisiana law they could be charged with.

“I cannot overemphasize what a villainous act that was. The people that did it should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town,” Walters said.

He also noted that four defendants in the beating case were of adult age under Louisiana law, and that the only juvenile charged as an adult, Mychal Bell, had a prior criminal record.

Bell, 16 at the time of the attack, is the only one of the Jena Six to be tried so far. He was convicted on an aggravated second-degree battery count that could have sent him to prison for 15 years, but the conviction was overturned last week when a state appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult.

Thursday’s protest had been planned to coincide with Bell’s sentencing, but organizers decided to press ahead after the conviction was thrown out. Bell remains in jail while prosecutors prepare an appeal.

Students from schools across the country — including historically black colleges like Morehouse College, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Howard University, Hampton University and Southern University — were en route to Jena on Wednesday.

The case has resonated with young people, said Jeff Johnson, an activist and organizer who is covering the Jena rally for Black Entertainment Television.

“It does not happen often, where there’s something that catches fire and really creates a mass movement of students,” Johnson said as he boarded a Louisiana-bound plane in Atlanta.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson likened the gathering protest to historic events in Montgomery and Selma, Ala., and Little Rock, Ark.

For many Jena residents, Thursday’s march is a bitter pill — the result, they said, of overblown and unfair media coverage. Most wouldn’t comment and those that did were visibly irritated or angry.

“This isn’t a racist town. It never has been. We didn’t even have fist fights when the schools were integrated,” said a white man who refused to give his name or comment further.

“Not no, but hell no,” another man said angrily when asked to comment.

Town and state officials, however, said this week they wanted the demonstrators to be welcome and comfortable, and the resistance demonstrators met in the ’50s and ’60s was nowhere evident. State transportation workers were installing flashing message signs on town streets that would aid with traffic, and state police said portable toilets would be placed along the route.

Racial tensions in Jena were inflamed when the nooses were hung on a tree at Jena High School more than a year ago. They appeared after a black student expressed interest in sitting under a tree where whites usually congregated.

Thursday’s march was to take protesters past the school — and the stump of the tree, which authorities had removed in July.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize the protest and met Bell at the courthouse Wednesday morning, said Bell is heartened by the show of support and wants to make sure it stays peaceful.

“He doesn’t want anything done that would disparage his name — no violence, not even a negative word,” Sharpton said.

“It breaks our hearts to see him in handcuffs and leg shackles, but his spirit is high,” he added.

Some businesses in town planned to shut down during the demonstrations. Shirley Martin, whose daughter, Tina Norms, decided to close Cafe Martin on Wednesday, said she doubts it will open Thursday, even though the rally is expected to end by midmorning.

“That sounds fine. Maybe we can get our town back in order for us to work the next day,” she said.

At least one business in town was trying to show civic pride. “Jena, La.,” said the T-shirts on display in one apparel store window. “Still a great place to call home.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Darran Simon can be reached at dsimon@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3386.

Activists mobilizing to support ‘Jena 6′

Posted by tortenzi September 18, 2007 10:12PM

By Darran Simon
Staff writer

The push came from Stacy Lewis’ son, a boy just a few years younger than a jailed black teenager in a smidgen of a town named Jena.

Lewis’ 12-year-old pointed out to her that Mychal Bell, the first of six black teenagers to be tried on aggravated battery charges stemming from a fight with a white classmate, was only four years older than he was. The realization crystallized for Lewis the ordeal of the “Jena Six,” making the significance of a news story more than 200 miles to the northwest hit home.

Lewis took action, organizing two buses to bring supporters of the teens to a Thursday rally in Jena. She ordered T-shirts, fielded phone calls, printed tickets and created lesson plans for the students on the ride who will be missing school.

Thousands, including busloads from New Orleans, are expected to converge on Jena — a woodsy hamlet of about 3,000 people in LaSalle Parish — to stand behind the teenagers in a case that some activists say personifies the unequal treatment meted out by some local justice systems toward people who are black or poor, or both.

“That sold me,” Lewis said of her son’s comment. “It made it my child that was sitting there.”

Campuses rally

On Tuesday night, grass-roots organizations who plan to leave from New Orleans made signs and banners. A rally and a prayer service are scheduled for today at Dillard University, which will send more than 200 students to Jena. Xavier University’s NAACP chapter and other campus groups will send more than 150 students on three buses. About 100 more are driving on their own, chapter President Javonne Patterson said.

“I think Thursday is going to be a moment in history,” said Patterson, a senior biology major at Xavier. “You haven’t had this many African-Americans come together for one central cause, especially dealing with civil rights, since the civil rights movement.”

On Tuesday, about 200 students from Spelman College, Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University marched in Atlanta in support of the Jena Six.

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the American Civil Liberties Union are among the sponsors of Thursday’s rally at Jena’s courthouse. Martin Luther King III, the son of the civil rights leader, and others are expected to lead thousands in the national march on what would have been Mychal Bell’s sentencing.

Teen’s conviction tossed

Last week a state appeals court tossed out the aggravated battery conviction against Bell, which could have sent him to prison for up to 15 years. The court said Bell should not have been tried as an adult. Bell was 16 at the time of the fight, which makes him a juvenile under state law.

Bell’s case remains in juvenile court. The attorney for Bell, a heralded football star in Jena, filed a motion Monday to have him released. Bell has been jailed since January, unable to meet the $90,000 bond.

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, who has led the prosecutions, said he would appeal the ruling. Walters has two weeks to file an appeal.

“When they gave us the good news Friday, I thought a lot of people would shy away” from the protest, said Stacy Lewis, 35, a maintenance administrator at Delgado Community College who reserved a second bus Monday to handle the overflow. “But what I think it did was it empowered them even more.”

Last week’s ruling does not affect four other teenagers who were charged as adults because they were 17 at the time. Their cases haven’t come to trial. Charges against the sixth defendant, a juvenile, haven’t been made public.

Five of the six defendants originally faced attempted murder charges, which were reduced to aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit the crime. A judge also threw out Bell’s conspiracy conviction earlier this month.

‘It’s not over’

Sharpton and the rally’s organizers say they still plan to meet to show their support for the six.

“The families know it’s not over. It’s not over for Mychal Bell. It’s not over for the other five,” said King Downing, national coordinator for the ACLU’s Campaign Against Racial Profiling, part of the organization’s Racial Justice Project. “The goal of the families now is to keep the momentum going.”

Family members of the Jena Six came to New Orleans earlier this month to speak at fundraisers and forums. The local ACLU chapter has been making the four-hour journey to Jena.

A year ago, black students found nooses hanging from an oak tree in the courtyard of Jena High. The oak tree — which has since been cut down — was a gathering place for white students, though an administrator said black students could sit there if they wanted. The white students who tied the nooses were suspended, not expelled as an administrator first ruled.

Fights broke out in the following days. By the end of November, a wing of the Jena school was burned. That weekend Robert Bailey Jr., one of the defendants, was involved in two confrontations with white Jena residents, one of whom who faced minor charges.

On Dec. 4, Bell and others confronted Justin Barker, a white Jena High student, kicking him with tennis shoes and knocking him unconscious. Though he was hurt, Barker attended a school event later that night. Walters argued that the dangerous weapons were the rubber shoes with which Bell and others stomped Barker.

An all-white jury convicted Bell of aggravated assault in a few hours. His attorney, a black public defender, didn’t present a defense.

World watching case

The Jena case has gained worldwide notoriety, and organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has helped with the defense, have stepped in to assist. For New Orleans residents, the issue resonates deeply.

“We just want to ensure that some level of justice is served,” said Erika Murray-Traveler, who is helping to organize a bus ride to Jena under the banner of Artists in Action, comprising poets and other creative people.

Murray-Traveler, a spoken-word artist known as PoeticOne, first learned of the issue four months ago. She has since used the microphone during performances to tell the story of the Jena Six, first sharing it with an audience at Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club on St. Claude Avenue.

“You could hear a pin drop,” Murray-Traveler said of the first time she talked about the case.

Jena, a predominantly white town, resembles parts of the country that “never saw the civil rights movement,” said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-group monitoring initiative.

“Without intending to defame the residents of Jena and the surrounding areas, I think it’s a fact that these places exist in a culture that is quite disconnected from large sections of the mainstream culture,” said Potok, a former USA Today reporter who has written stories from the South.

Potok, who has never been to Jena, said he hopes Thursday’s march amounts to more than just bottled outrage.

“I hope that it causes some communities to take an honest look at themselves,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Darran Simon can be reached at dsimon@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3386.

from CNN:

Thousands rally in Jena ‘march for justice’

• Story Highlights
• NEW: Bell’s mother says son amazed by large crowds

JENA, Louisiana (CNN) — Thousands of protesters gathered in Jena, Louisiana, on Thursday to show support for the “Jena 6,” six black teens charged in the beating of a white classmate.

Charles Steele Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, speaks in Jena, Louisiana.

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Thursday was the day Mychal Bell expected to find out his punishment for his alleged role in the beating at Jena High.

“This is a march for justice. This is not a march against whites or against Jena,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist and one of the protest organizers.

Sharpton called Jena the beginning of the 21st century civil rights movement.

“[The Rev. Martin Luther] King went to Selma. That wasn’t the only place you couldn’t vote. That was the point of action,” Sharpton said. “They went to Birmingham. That wasn’t the only place we didn’t have public accommodations. It was the point of action.

“Jena is a point of action for the Jenas everywhere,” Sharpton said.

“There’s a Jena in every state,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the crowd in Jena on Thursday morning.

JoAnn Scales, who brought her three teenage children on a two-day bus journey from Los Angeles to Jena, made the same point.

“The reason I brought my children is because it could have been one of them” involved in an incident like the one in Jena.

“If this can happen to them [the Jena 6] , it can happen to anyone,” Scales said.

Ondra Hathaway was on the bus with Scales.

“If this young man (Bell) was railroaded to do time as an adult, how many more people has that happened to?” she said.

At 8 a.m. ET, a Louisiana state patrol officer said five tour buses were being allowed into the town every 12 minutes. That resulted in buses lined up as far as the eye could see in both directions on Route 49.

Bell’s mother, Melissa Bell, said her son was watching Thursday’s events on the news.

“He was excited. … He said it is amazing,” Melissa Bell said.

“This is good. It’s beautiful to see … these people around here,” she said as she walked with Sharpton.

As the crowd grew in Jena, they found most of the local population gone, reported CNN’s Tony Harris. The town’s businesses had shut down, he said.

The town, about 200 miles northwest of New Orleans, is 85 percent white and 12 percent black.

Demonstrators are protesting what they say are excessive criminal charges and bond amounts for the teens.

Bails for the “Jena 6″ were set at between $70,000 and $138,000, and all but Bell have posted bond. Bell, 17, has been in prison since his arrest in December. The judge has refused to lower his $90,000 bail, citing Bell’s criminal record, which includes four juvenile offenses — two simple battery charges among them.

“It breaks our heart to see him handcuffed and in leg shackles,” Sharpton said. “But his spirit is high. He has said that he is very encouraged to know that thousands are coming to this town to stand up for him and his five friends.”

The teens were initially charged with attempted murder after they allegedly knocked out Justin Barker — a white classmate — while stomping and kicking him during a school fight on December 4, 2006.

Barker was taken to a hospital with injuries to both eyes and ears as well as cuts. His right eye had blood clots, said his mother, Kelli Barker.

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters urged the world not to forget the victim in the case.

“The injury done to him and threats to his survival have become less than a footnote,” Walters said Wednesday.

“This case has not, never has been about race. It’s about finding justice for an innocent victim, holding people accountable for their actions. That is what it’s about,” he said.

Advocates of the Jena 6 said the story actually began three months earlier, when three white students hung nooses from a tree on campus. The white students were suspended from school but didn’t face criminal charges. The protesters argue they should have been charged with a hate crime.

Bell was to have been sentenced Thursday after convictions for second-degree aggravated battery and conspiracy to do the same, but both charges have been vacated, awaiting further action by the district attorney.

A district judge earlier this month tossed out Bell’s conviction for conspiracy to commit second-degree battery, saying the matter should have been handled in juvenile court. Last week, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Lake Charles, Louisiana, did the same with Bell’s battery conviction.

But a Louisiana appeals court ruled Tuesday it was too early to consider a motion to free Bell from prison.

Charges for four of the other teens — Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Theo Shaw and Bryant Purvis — have been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy.

Charges for the sixth teen, a juvenile, are unknown because his files are closed.

Thursday morning, demonstrators walked to the high school, asking to see the tree where nooses were hung. They couldn’t; the tree has been chopped down.

Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney who reviewed investigations into the nooses and the beating said he believes the incidents — though likely symptoms of racial tension — were not related.

“A lot of things happened between the noose hanging and the fight occurring, and we have arrived at the conclusion that the fight itself had no connection,” said Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.

“There were three months of high school football in which they all played football together and got along fine, in which there was a homecoming court, in which there was the drill team, in which there were parades,” Washington added. E-mail to a friend

CNN’s Susan Roesgen, Tony Harris, Kyra Philips and Eliott McLaughlin contributed to this report.