protesters pepper sprayed, tasered, arrested NEW ORLEANS: RESISTING DEMOLITION
from REVOLUTION newspaper [http://revcom.us/]:
Protesters Pepper Sprayed, Tasered, Arrested
New Orleans:
Resisting Demolition
On Thursday, December 20, the New Orleans City Council was scheduled to vote on whether to demolish public housing in New Orleans. The city’s plan is to destroy more than 4,600 units of low-cost housing. This is happening in a city where homelessness is growing. A city where tens of thousands have not been able to return since Katrina. A city where people are being evicted from FEMA trailers, where homeless encampments are being forcibly removed. And this plan has been met with resistance by people determined to be heard and determined to stop the demolitions.
Even before the City Council voted, the system delivered its answer in brutality:
The police attacked people and arrested them inside the City Council meeting. BILLY CLUBS, PEPPER SPRAY, AND TASERS were also used outside against people protesting the demolitions.
A protester who was at the City Council meeting told Revolution: “We were denied our human rights. HANO [Housing Authority of New Orleans] brought a lot of people in there, in favor of demolition. All of those people were able to get their people seated fairly quickly without any problems. And we was asking why weren’t you letting more of our people in and also the people opposed to demolition, they were screening the guys. As we made the request, because we saw a number of seats available, maybe even 20 seats available for people to come in, but they had them close off the access to council chambers… We got up in protest, screaming, ‘Let the people in! Let the people in!’ And the officers decided to silence us, so one of the officers grabbed me, put his hands on me. I told him don’t put his hands on me, and the crowd was still chanting, ‘Let the people in!’ because they was illegally starting the process. Then another officer passed me up, so I started chanting again ‘Let the people in.’ So another officer took it upon himself to use physical enforcement to silence me. A number of police officers then jumped me, physically hitting me, striking me. Knocked me on the ground, then one SWAT team officer tasered me. So while I was being tasered, another officer asked me to put my hands behind my back, but I was paralyzed from the taser, by the volts. I was tasered again. So when I have two tasers in me I was tasered again. So I was tasered three times after being beaten and attacked by the police officers. They handcuffed me and dragged me out of the room. I was put in a paddy wagon and brought to jail.”
Then the city council took their vote: seven votes to ZERO in favor of demolishing four large public housing developments.
A graphic display of bourgeois democracy in action.
Outrage On Top of All the Other Outrages
The night before the vote, TV news already announced that most of the city council was going to vote for demolition. It was also announced that cops would be out in large numbers to enforce order during the meeting. The Message: forget about protesting this blatant injustice, the powers-that-be have already decided to go ahead and demolish more than 4,600 units of public housing—homes that could be fixed up for people who desperately need a place to live. The city’s plan is to destroy more than 4,600 units and replace them with “mixed income housing” which will have less than 800 affordable units.
On the day of the meeting, HUD and the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) packed the council chambers with supporters of demolition. Several hundred people also came to the council meeting to voice their opposition to the demolitions. But the police closed and chained the gates to the City Council chambers before the meeting began. They claimed there was no more room—even though there were dozens of empty seats and lots of standing room.
More than 100 people demonstrated outside, chanting “Stop the Demolitions.” New Orleans residents who had been exiled after Katrina came from places like Houston and New York to oppose the demolitions, and they were enraged at being locked out of the council. Inside the chambers, people refused to let the meeting begin, demanding those locked out be allowed in. Cops grabbed several young men by their dreads. Mothers and grandmothers from the projects joined youth and others to condemn this repression while it was going on and throughout the session. To enforce “order,” the cops beat, tased and arrested people.
The crowd outside became enraged at the sight of people being dragged out in handcuffs. People surged against the chained gate forcing it to pop open. When some tried to get into the chambers the cops arrested several people, indiscriminately shot pepper spray into the crowd and started tasing people. Three women were tased, one of them in the back, sending her into convulsions. At least 15 people were arrested.
It was AFTER all this—after opponents of the demolition had been beaten, tased and arrested—that the City Council went through the formality of hearing public comment for and against demolition. And then voted unanimously to demolish the homes and communities of thousands of poor Black families.
Were any of the council members bothered by any of this repression? Not a bit. The Los Angeles Times reported: “City Council members—some sipping water, others leafing through file folders —looked on impassively as a man was tasered, handcuffed and dragged from the council chambers.”
Since Katrina, outrage after outrage has been perpetrated against the people of New Orleans. Tens of thousands left to die as Katrina’s flood waters surged. People denied evacuation or rescue and food and water. People vilified and dissed as looters and thugs for taking what they needed to survive.
And now THIS—in a city where there is such a crying need for low-cost housing, the authorities are moving ahead with plans to demolish public housing. More than 200,000 New Orleans residents still live outside the city, 150,000 of them Black, unable to come back, in large part, because there’s nowhere they can afford to live. Thousands are being evicted from FEMA trailers, and more than 12,000 people, more than double the number of homeless before Katrina, are living on the streets.
But the logic of capitalism sees no profit in providing low-cost housing for people. And plans to rebuild New Orleans have clearly been aimed at making it a city less Black, less poor, and more geared toward profitable enterprises like tourism.
Resistance Builds, Much More Needed
Resistance to the demolitions had been growing in the days leading up to the City Council meeting. At the BW Cooper development, where demolitions began, several people occupied apartments the day before the council vote. Two people chained themselves to the buildings, shutting down demolition efforts for much of the day. The authorities responded by declaring the whole housing development a crime scene and threatening residents with arrest if they left their homes. One of these residents called in to a press conference held to support the occupations and spoke by phone on a TV newscast, letting people know she was “being held hostage” by the police. People involved in the occupations were given felony charges of terrorizing and “using a simulated explosive device.”
Headlines and photographs were seen around the world—showing the resistance of the people to this latest attack. And much more resistance is needed to take on and beat back these demolitions. For the authorities, the only thing left to work out is the details of how people’s homes will be demolished. But for many people, this battle is far from over. It has already been very important and very significant that this outrage has not been allowed to go down quietly, that it has been met with determined resistance from the people. And it is an outrageous exposure that in order to have their vote to carry through with this plan they had to lock people out of the meeting, beat, tase, pepper spray and arrest people.
The stakes in this battle are very high. People across the country, and around the world, witnessed the criminal way the system treated people after Katrina. And people have seen how the system has continued to mistreat and abandon the people of New Orleans—making it impossible for most to come back and rebuild their homes and lives. Politicians and the media continue to vilify Black people in New Orleans, calling them thugs and criminals and blaming them for the desperate conditions the system has put them in. It is right to rebel against all this! And it is heartening and inspiring to see people resisting in New Orleans.
New Orleans represents something special to people. Before Katrina it was seen as a vibrant city with a distinctive culture. Since Katrina, it has come to symbolize a blatant concentration of the whole history and the continuing reality of how this system oppresses Black people. There has been widespread sentiment among millions of people of wanting to stand with the people in New Orleans, to do something to help. And in spite of government neglect and roadblocks, tens of thousands of volunteers of many different nationalities and walks of life have come to New Orleans to gut houses, clean up schools, and help the rebuilding effort in other ways. In such a situation, RESISTANCE in New Orleans resonates with many people who could be allies in this struggle, who feel that this resistance has RIGHT ON ITS SIDE, who could “have the people’s back.”
Resistance to the demolitions has already struck a chord with and impacted many different kinds of people. In mid-December, dozens of mostly youthful volunteers responded to a call to come down to help stop the demolitions. Right after the City Council vote, a crew of people, including some youth from Jena, came to New Orleans to distribute Revolution newspaper.
On December 5, Brad Pitt was on the Larry King show talking about his project to rebuild eco-friendly housing in the Ninth Ward (a poor Black neighborhood devastated by floods). He expressed real concern about the situation people are in. Speaking about the scene at the City Council meeting, he said: “What yesterday certainly reflects is the frustration and the helplessness that families are facing here. And, again, you know, it’s been two-and-a-half years now. And, again, I don’t know the details. I know there was some arguments that these places created crime. I didn’t hear the argument that answers that for me, is that you’ve got to address education, you’ve got to address health, you’ve got to address opportunities. And until you address that, what do you expect is going to be there? So I don’t know that the issue is just about the housing itself. But, again, I don’t know enough. What I do know is that this tells you what an open nerve this place still is. And as hopeful and as great spirit as the people maintain here, you know, they need some help.”
There is much need, and great possibility, for the resistance to these demolitions to grow broader and become more determined. The powers-that-be are serious about rebuilding a smaller, whiter New Orleans, with much of its Black population driven out. In a real way, this concentrates the killing program this system has for Black people nationwide.
As the resistance grows and becomes more determined, it can attract people who hate the outrages this system continues to inflict on the people and want to see a different and better way for people to live. It can bring many more forward to join the struggle, and through the course of resisting, people can learn what they’re up against and what it’ll take to win. It can win allies from amongst people from many different backgrounds. And all this can and must be part of building a broad revolutionary movement.
Revolution is calling on its readers to send messages of support to the people in New Orleans, which we will forward.
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Fight the Power, And Transform the People, For Revolution
DESTROYING HOMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS IN NEW ORLEANS
from REVOLUTION newspaper [http://revcom.us/]:
Destroying Homes for the Holidays in New Orleans
On December 12, government authorities began the planned demolition of four public housing developments in New Orleans. Bulldozers began rolling in the BW Cooper development. But this outrageous and heartless destruction of housing has been met with protest and resistance.
In September 2005, people around the world watched in horror at how the U.S. government abandoned tens of thousands of Black people in the flood waters after Katrina, subjected them to the most inhumane conditions, then callously evacuated them. Now, two years later, on December 14, headlines and photographs about New Orleans hit the national and international news again: The U.S. government heartlessly RAZING low-income housing people AND people RESISTING, going up against the bulldozers, determined to stop this crime. This had a big impact—the eyes of the world turned toward New Orleans once again. And as we go to press, a state court has halted the demolitions at three of the four developments, saying that the city council never voted to authorize the demolitions.
The city council could vote right away to put all of the demolitions back on track. And the court decision leaves one development, BW Cooper, facing demolition because it was slated for demolition before Hurricane Katrina.
If the authorities get away with their plans, four of the five remaining major public housing developments in the city will be demolished. More than 4,600 units will be reduced to rubble and replaced by “mixed income housing” which will have less than 800 affordable units.
These demolitions will destroy the neighborhoods that thousands of people called home. Many of the people who used to live in the sections of Cooper that are being demolished have been forced to move in with relatives or friends. Others have been forced to live on the streets. Now their homes are being destroyed.
It’s also clear that most of the people who used to live in public housing will be unable to afford to live in the new developments built to replace those being demolished. New Orleans has already been through this with the destruction of the St. Thomas development before Katrina. Fifteen hundred affordable units were lost in that demolition and only 150 affordable units were built in the River Gardens development that replaced St. Thomas.
The destruction of public housing is happening in cities across the country, and it’s an outrage. But it’s even MORE outrageous that this is going down in New Orleans. It was criminal enough what this system did to people right after Hurricane Katrina. But the system’s criminal and massive abuse has continued up to the present day. Black communities like the 9th Ward remain especially neglected. Two hundred thousand people who used to live here remain exiled across the country since Katrina. One hundred fifty thousand of these people are Black. Destroying public housing will mean many people will never be able to return. On top of this, thousands of New Orleans residents living in FEMA emergency trailers here and in cities across the country will be evicted over the next six months. Where are they going to find housing? What about the large and growing homeless population in New Orleans? Officials say 12,000 people live on the streets in New Orleans, double the official count before Katrina. Many people say there are thousands more homeless here. These demolitions will only make that number grow.
Resistance Builds
These demolitions must be brought to a halt. They are part of a plan to rebuild a New Orleans that is smaller and whiter with much of its Black population driven out of the city. They are part of a nationwide drive to destroy public housing and part of the Bush regime’s program for Black people—poverty, prisons and punishment. New Orleans itself has become a national and international symbol—people point to what happened after Hurricane Katrina as a blatant and concentrated example of the living legacy of slavery and how the U.S. capitalist system continues to oppress Black people. And whether or not people fight back and resist these outrageous demolitions holds special significance to people around the world. This underscores the larger importance of and stakes in this struggle. And the rulers of the U.S. also know the national and international impact of what happens in New Orleans and must put this in their calculations over what to do.
The authorities are very determined to go ahead with these eveictions. Residents and former residents of public housing have been threatened with being kicked out of public housing forever or losing their housing vouchers if they speak out against the demolitions. Alphonso Jackson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), warned city officials that HUD will revoke $137 million in federal assistance and that 900 former public housing residents living in different parts of the country will be stripped of their housing vouchers if the demolitions are halted.
Resistance has begun to grow. A hundred people packed into a city hall office to demand that the demolitions be halted on Monday, December 10. On December 12, 50 people formed a human wall to block a bulldozer from entering BW Cooper, the first development they began to take down. The bulldozer was moved in overnight. The next day people who had occupied one of the buildings unfurled a banner protesting the demolition as the bulldozer demolished another building. After a several hour stand off, the protesters were arrested by cops and charged with trespassing.
Earlier that day, more than 100 people marched to the New Orleans HUD office to demand a stop to the demolitions. And other protest actions were held at two other developments slated for demolition. This resistance has been mounted by public housing residents, dozens of volunteers who came to New Orleans to help stop the demolitions, and a growing array of supporters.
Many people in New Orleans have been electrified by this resistance. They see that the demolitions are bad for poor people and especially for Black people. Some say they feel this is aimed at driving Black people out of New Orleans. People remember how after Katrina, ten-term Congressman from Baton Rouge Richard Baker said, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it. But God did.”
At the same time, many people have sharp questions. Some say the projects were breeding grounds for poverty and crime and that it’s better to get rid of them and build something new. Others raise that losing public housing’s low rent and utility bills would motivate people to get jobs and better themselves.
These views echo what the authorities say to justify getting rid of public housing, and they mistake cause for effect. Many public housing residents work, but at low paying, dead end jobs. Many others can’t find work. The capitalist system is responsible for this. It sucked the jobs out of Black and other oppressed neighborhoods in New Orleans and across the country. It offers millions of Black youth with futures of low paying dead-end jobs, if they can find any jobs. It has criminalized many of these youth and warehouses hundreds of thousands of them in prisons. Getting rid of public housing isn’t going to ease this situation. In fact, it will only intensify it.
And beyond the immediate repercussions of the destruction of public housing in New Orleans, there is the larger impact and significance of whether or not there is resistance to such an assault on poor people in New Orleans.
All this underscores the need to fight these demolitions, not go along with them. And it underscores the need to build this fight as part of getting ready for revolution. The poverty and crime that people want to escape is caused by capitalism. It’ll take nothing short of revolution to deal with this and the exploitation and oppression that capitalism enforces on the world.
Building public housing doesn’t fit into the plans to profitably rebuild New Orleans. And a basic absurdity of free market capitalism is on display with the destruction of public housing here. There are thousands of people in this city with no jobs who could be trained and put to work. There are thousands of people in this city living on the street who need homes. There are people from all over the country and world who could be mobilized to volunteer their skills and abilities to help rebuild this city. But this SYSTEM, where profit determines what is and isn’t done, STANDS IN THE WAY of bringing all these different factors together to provide decent housing.
A revolutionary society, one where power was in the hands of the people, could deal with the need for affordable housing completely different than this setup. People who needed work could be unleashed to build the housing so many needed. In the face of a natural disaster like Katrina, a revolutionary society wouldn’t leave people to die and then seize on it as an opportunity to drive the masses out of town and not allow them to come back like this system did. The enthusiasm and energy of the people could be tapped into and unleashed to rebuild, not suppressed and subjected to repression like what has happened right after and since Katrina. This won’t be easy, but it will be possible under socialism, where the masses of people are fully mobilized to struggle out, figure out and work together to transform society and emancipate the people.
The holiday demolition of public housing is an outrage on top of all the other outrages this system has already perpetrated on the people of New Orleans. People are fighting for the right to return to the city, to rebuild their homes and their lives—and there is a critical need for affordable housing in New Orleans. People need to fight to see to it that none of it is destroyed.
Whatever twists and turns this struggle goes through, a real fight to stop these demolitions is what’s needed and possible. It’s not a done deal—that the authorities can destroy these developments and the people can’t do anything about it. Already the power of the people’s resistance has caused them to back off temporarily. Now this resistance must get stronger, and it must draw support from all over the country. There are no “outsiders” in the fight for justice—New Orleans is everyone’s battle. And if that’s done, it will create new ground to advance the struggle to defend public housing in New Orleans and around the country. And it would raise people’s consciousness and help politically prepare them for revolution.
Revolution is calling on its readers to send messages of support to the people in New Orleans, which we will forward.
MORE ON THE REMOVAL OF FOUR CARPENTERS LOCAL 157 OFFICERS
from the VILLAGE VOICE:
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Nails in Their Stockings It’s a heave-ho, not ho-ho, for carpenter-union bigs by Tom Robbins December 11th, 2007 6:29 PM |
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Bad tidings always carry an added sting when delivered during the holiday season, which is one reason there’s not much of a festive spirit right now over at the offices of Carpenters Local 157 on East 25th Street.A few days after Thanksgiving, the local’s 4,500 members learned through the grapevine that most of their top elected officers had suddenly been ousted—for reasons that were not immediately clear. Rumor was that the local was also being taken over by the national union, but this too was hard to nail down. What was known was that the monthly membership meeting was abruptly canceled, as was the annual Christmas party—a move that really added insult to injury. “Nobody knows what the hell is going on,” griped a veteran carpenter who called this newspaper in a vain attempt to find something out. A couple of phone calls quickly established that yes, the city’s carpenters union was again embroiled in a corruption scandal, and yes, the parent union had stepped in, and yes, heads had already rolled. You’d think that in the age of computers and mobile phones (which I can confirm are possessed by the vast majority of the city’s rank-and-file carpenters), the details of this coup would have already been shared with the membership. But here it is, three weeks later, and the key information has yet to be imparted by the New York City District Council of Carpenters to these hardworking New Yorkers. For details, members had to turn to a new, and very unofficial, website (local157.blogspot.com). There, carpenter John Musumeci posted a press release from the district council that shed only the faintest light on the situation: “Some representatives assigned to work in Local 157 were not performing their jobs in the manner expected of them by the District Council,” it stated with all the clarity of mud. Here then, based on discussions with several sources, are the facts of the matter as assembled by the Voice: The first official out the door was William Hanley, 55, the $140,000-a-year president and business manager of Local 157, who resigned his position shortly before Thanksgiving. Hanley’s sudden retirement came after he was confronted with evidence gathered by William Callahan, the union’s court-appointed independent investigator. The evidence was in the form of cell-phone records that suggested the union leader had spent many weekday afternoons roaming Long Island, where his family happens to have a splendid waterfront home, instead of working the streets of Manhattan’s East Side, where his members are employed. Similar evidence was presented against Hanley’s second-in-command, financial secretary Fred Kennedy, who made the same quick career choice. Local business representative Daniel DeMorato was suspended from his post and reassigned. But another target, local vice president George DiLacio, told his interrogators to get lost. DiLacio refused to give up his elected post at the local but was summarily fired from his $127,000-a-year job as a union representative. Callahan’s report on his findings has yet to be made public, but excerpts from it were quoted in a letter to the local from national carpenters union president Douglas McCarron. In it, McCarron quotes Callahan describing Local 157 as “a mismanaged mess where [business agents] come and go as they please, following few, if any, rules.” The ousted officials couldn’t be reached, but a friend of Hanley’s said the carpenter had simply decided to throw in the towel. “He was at a point where he didn’t care any more,” said the friend. “He just wanted to go.” As well he might. Even though its ranks are filled with bright and active blue-collar workers, the carpenters union has been unable to climb out of a 30-year-long quagmire of corruption. Several recent heads of the union’s 25,000-member district council have faced corruption charges: Teddy Maritas disappeared and was presumed murdered in 1982 after he was indicted in a mob-bribery scheme; Paschal McGuinness was acquitted of corruption charges, but was forced to retire when federal prosecutors hit the union with a 1990 civil-racketeering case; Fred Devine was convicted of stealing more than $175,000 in union funds. The current council leader, Michael Forde, was convicted in 2004 of taking a $50,000 bribe from a mobster’s son-in-law while seated in a Hooter’s restaurant on West 56th Street. The money was alleged to have sealed a promise that Forde would look the other way while nonunion workers renovated the old Park Central hotel. The conviction, however, was set aside after the judge determined that members of the jury had spoken disparagingly of union officials during the trial, and had read an account of the affair in the Voice. Forde’s retrial has been put off repeatedly. It is currently scheduled for January. Before his sudden retirement, Hanley was viewed as a strong contender to lead the union should Forde finally be forced from office. Considered popular with the members, Hanley was a third-generation carpenter. Both his father and grandfather ran the local before him. Gene Hanley, William’s dad, ran into his own problems back in 1987, when investigators managed to plant a bug in his office in the local’s headquarters. The device picked up conversations between the elder Hanley and contractors seeking relief from having to pay full union wages and benefits to workers. “You could hear the desk drawer open and close as he put the envelopes inside,” said an investigator who worked on the case. Gene Hanley was ultimately sentenced to a four-year term for taking bribes. No specific allegations were ever lodged against the son, but William Hanley was made well aware that prosecutors were taking a hard look at him as well. Over the past year, federal prosecutors won indictments of two shop stewards with close ties to Hanley and who had been assigned to oversee a massive renovation of the old Met Life buildings on Madison Avenue. The stewards, both of whom were local officers, were charged with defrauding the union by submitting phony reports that omitted the names of dozens of union members. One of the stewards, Frank Proscia, pled guilty in late October. The other, Michael “Mickey” Annucci, is due to go to trial next month. When Annucci was arrested last year, investigators suggested that he help himself by telling what he knew about corruption. Like what? asked Annucci. Like about Bill Hanley, the investigators answered, according to an affidavit filed in the case. Carpenters are pretty well inured to these goings-on by now, but the members of Local 157 have been burning up their cell-phone minutes over the last month complaining about how they’re kept in the dark. Although no official notice has gone out yet, a day-long hearing is expected to be held on December 18. It will be attended by top leaders of the national union in Washington, who can expect an earful from rank-and-file discontents. One of the questions that members are likely to raise is why only Local 157’s officers were scrutinized about their attendance records. While no one I spoke to could vouch for the whereabouts of the ousted officers all day long, several said they could always rely on finding Hanley and Kennedy at the local’s offices before 6 a.m. every morning, handling inquiries and making calls to contractors. Asks one disgruntled nail-driver: “Did they check any other locals to see where their officers are all day?” The probe also follows criticism by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office that, prior to the Hanley probe, investigator Callahan had been largely ineffective in his role. Members have also protested that the investigator has focused more on Local 157 than Forde’s home base, which covers Manhattan’s West Side. Callahan’s supporters, however, say he has just been following the evidence. The Hanley probe, they say, was spurred by an anonymous tip to his “corruption hotline.” If so, carpenters’ cell phones are likely to start humming. <!–
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new developments in jena case CAPITALIST “JUST-US” AND THE CASE OF THE JENA 6
from REVOLUTION newspaper [http://revcom.us/]:
New Development in Jena Case
Capitalist “Just-Us” and the Case of the Jena 6
On December 3, 2007 Mychal Bell of the Jena 6 accepted a plea bargain (called an “admission” in juvenile court) and was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile prison. Bell pled guilty to second-degree battery, and the second charge of conspiracy to commit second-degree battery was thrown out. He will be forced to undergo counseling, pay court costs, and pay $935 to Justin Barker (the white student the Jena 6 are accused of beating up) and his family. The deal stipulates that Bell must “testify truthfully” if he is called as a witness in trials for any of the other Jena 6 youth. He is being given time served which means he will be held in a juvenile prison for several months more, and his parents have been ordered to pay child support to the state of Louisiana until his 18th birthday.
What this system had already done to Mychal Bell and the Jena 6 is an outrage. But this whole “deal” is a further outrage—it is nothing but a coerced admission, in which Bell must agree to say what the prosecutors want him to say. And the carrying forward of the prosecution of the other Jena 6 youth is a further and continuing outrage on top of this.
This has raised some sharp questions. What pressures were behind Mychal Bell pleading out? How should we look at these? And what does this mean for the rest of the Jena 6—and for the struggle against the racism concentrated in this case, and the “epidemic” of nooses that has arisen in its wake?
A Case That Concentrates White Supremacy
From the very beginning the arrest, imprisonment, and prosecution of the Jena 6 has been a terrible INJUSTICE. In the small town of Jena, Louisiana, where a white supremacist, southern segregationist way of life rules, nooses were hung on a “whites-only” tree at the high school. Black students rebelled and said ENOUGH. They were repressed with outrageous and discriminatory prosecution. And when word of all this got out, tens of thousands around the country also said ENOUGH.
When the District Attorney arrested the Jena 6 on December 4, 2006, it was not for a so-called schoolyard fight. The nooses hung in Jena represent the “tradition” of lynchings and KKK terror. School administrators, government officials, and the court system have essentially backed up the hanging of nooses in Jena—from calling it a “prank,” to hardly punishing those who put them up, to coming down on those protesting it. And this says a lot about the virulence of raw, unvarnished racism in today’s society.
This case struck a deep chord around the country because it so sharply concentrates not just the past, but the present-day reality for Black people all over this country. There were the threats, the arrests, and the months the Jena 6 spent in jail without being convicted of anything. There was the extremely high bail, in the tens of thousands of dollars, and the Jim Crow all-white jury trial of Mychal Bell. And there was the way they kept Bell in jail—even after his conviction in adult court had been overturned. This kind of criminalization and unjust punishment is what this system does to Black youth every day in courtrooms all over the country.
Capitalist “Just-us”
To understand Mychal Bell’s plea bargain, we have to “pull back the lens” on this whole society; we have to apply some science to it, and get at the whole context and the underlying forces at work.
When someone goes to court and stands before a judge accused of a crime, it might seem like what is happening is just about an individual being accused of breaking the law and the court deciding whether he/she is guilty or not and what the punishment should be. But the U.S. so-called “justice” system operates as part of, and reflects and enforces the basic economic and social relations of the system of capitalism.
Under capitalism, a small number of people dominate ownership of the wealth of society. And more fundamentally, this class of people dominate the means to produce wealth, like land, raw materials, technology, etc. The vast majority of people own little or none of these things, and if they want to eat (or not be forced to survive by other, often illegal means) they have to sell their ability to work to those who do own them. This exchange—of the ability to work for a wage—may look like an equal exchange. But in reality it is a profoundly unequal relation where those without capital are forced to work for—and, in the process of working, create more wealth for—those who do own and control capital. Further, in U.S. society the oppression of Black people as a people has always been inseparably tied into the functioning of capitalism, even as this has taken different forms through history.
Bob Avakian, talking about how this fundamental relation of inequality, of domination and exploitation is extended into and embodied in all the relations of capitalist society despite the surface appearance of equality, points to the concept of “equality before the law” as an example. He says:
“This is supposed to mean that the same laws are applied, in the same ways, to everyone, regardless of what their ‘station’ in life is, how much money they have, and so on. Experience shows, however, that this is not how things work out in reality. People with more money have more political influence—and those with a great deal of money have a great deal of political influence and power—while those with less money, and especially those with very little, also have no significant political influence, connections with political power, and so on. And this plays out, repeatedly, in legal proceedings, right down to the way in which those presiding over legal procedures (judges) look—very differently—at different kinds of people who become involved in legal proceedings. But what is even more decisive is the reality that the laws themselves (and the Constitution which sets the basis for the laws) reflect and reinforce the essential relations in society, and most fundamentally the economic (production) relations of capitalism.” (“Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity, Part 1: Beyond the Narrow Horizon of Bourgeois Right,” available at: revcom.us)
This is the foundation and the reality of the whole system of DAs, judges, courts, and prisons that Mychal Bell (and millions of others) are up against.
The Plea Bargain Trap
In Louisiana, where Black people make up 34% of the population, 67% of those in the state’s juvenile justice system are Black (as of 2006). And plea bargains are a major way Black youth and others end up being unfairly locked up and dogged and criminalized by the authorities for even the most minor offenses.
In a typical year, more than 80% of trials in the U.S. resulted in plea bargains. The criminal justice system sweeps up people for the most minor offenses or no offenses at all. People end up in a situation where the choices are: take your chances and fight for your life, knowing the cards are stacked against you and that the system will try to punish you to the max (whether you did anything or not). Or bow down to the system and hope they might “go easier” on you. Many people know and have experienced the reality that in this country, the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, the right to have a fair trial, to get an impartial jury, to even get the system to follow its own stacked deck of rules, is a cruel lie.
Today there are millions of Black youth that the system of capitalism has no way to profitably exploit, youth left without jobs or any future. The prison system has become a way to contain and suppress hundreds of thousands of Black youth. And all this is backed up and reinforced by the media and people like Bill Cosby, who—rather than putting the blame on a system which cannot and will not give people a decent life and future—blame the masses for their conditions. Such attacks are used to write off, demonize, and criminalize these youth, and rationalize and justify the way the system warehouses them in prison.
It is a great injustice that Mychal Bell has already been kept behind bars for 10 months and been criminalized by this system. He is not guilty of anything for which he should spend a single day in prison. In fact if justice were really served, the system would be forced to apologize, give concessions to, and completely free all of the Jena 6.
Mychal Bell was first tried in adult court in July 2007 with an all-white jury and a white judge. No witnesses were called by Bell’s court-appointed defense—and 16 witnesses, mostly white, were called by the state. Then, in a matter of hours, Bell was convicted and faced up to 22 years in adult prison. He was held in custody for almost a year and—even after his conviction was overturned by a higher court—he was sent to juvenile court for trial. Then, under extreme conditions of intimidation and coercion, Bell was forced to choose whether or not to accept the DA’s plea deal. We can only guess at the pressures brought to bear on Mychal Bell and his family in getting him to accept this deal—including the fact that his trial in juvenile court would have been with only a judge and no jury. This is not unlike what happens to millions of others who this system takes into back rooms to exact a “confession.” And for this reason, it needs to be said that Mychal Bell’s “admission” of guilt doesn’t necessarily reflect the truth of what really happened. And now, if any of the other Jena 6 youth go to trial the system could try to force Mychal Bell to testify for the prosecution against them.
Real Truth and Real Justice
It has been a fact from the very beginning of this case that the only way justice will really be served is if ALL the charges are dropped and ALL the Jena 6 are freed. Circumstances of history made the Jena 6 youth the symbol and the focus of a big historic struggle—a fight for justice and part of getting to a whole better world where nooses and white supremacy will be a thing of the past. The emergence of a mass movement around the country, with tens of thousands marching right in Jena, was certainly a factor in Mychal Bell’s first two convictions being reversed—and no matter how much the DA denies it, this mass movement had an effect on what he could and could not do in the courtroom.
The state needs to secure convictions in the Jena 6 cases so as to let stand and reinforce their verdict that what these youth did in opposing the racist wave in Jena was a crime and also to give racist forces in society the green light. Lawyers for the Jena 6 must wage a real battle in the courtroom, grasping the larger questions involved and utilizing every opening, in this larger societal context, to defend their client(s). But such cases are not mainly decided in the courtroom, but more fundamentally by what happens in society at large. When thousands rise up in struggle, and millions begin to awaken to political life and focus their attention on this outrage, the rulers of this system then have to calculate the political price in going forward with such prosecutions. Will it shine more of a light on the workings of their system, and bring more people into motion against them? Will people, as they rise up, begin to get a sense of their full potential power? Will more people get drawn into searching for another way out of this system? Will some of them begin turning toward revolution as a result of that?
In this context, Mychal Bell’s decision not to fight this through and to agree with the system that he is “guilty” is a big mistake with real consequences. First of all, it’s not true; he is not guilty of anything other than standing up against a whole wave of racist intimidation. But beyond that, and especially when the hopes of millions for a better future for everyone are involved, you can’t look at this kind of thing from “what’s best for me”; there are much bigger stakes involved and you have to try to view it all from the interests of humanity. The “what’s best for me” outlook keeps this whole oppressive system going. It keeps the people fighting and clawing each other like crabs in a barrel. On the other hand, when “the whole world is watching,” when people’s hopes are on the line, as is the case in Jena, you can and you have to take a strong stand and make a big positive difference for the people.
But Mychal Bell, even though he has made this deal, will now face other demands from the system; whatever their promises, they will go for their “pound of flesh” and more from him. When he faces those demands, it will be important that he “does the right thing” and that the people support him if he does.
At the same time, four of the other Jena 6 are facing trials in adult court in the coming months on charges that could bring up to 22 years in prison. Another youth is facing charges in juvenile court. None of the Jena 6 should have been arrested to begin with. None of them should be going to trial on charges. None of them should be forced into some phony confession and deal. Any punishment for any of the Jena 6 is unjust. And the battle to free these youth and have their back must continue and grow, with even more determination.
WHITE RACISTS TO MARCH ON JENA, LOUISIANA
from REVOLUTION newspaper [http://revcom.us]:
Kluckers Threaten Jena March
Opposing White Supremacy…and Getting To a Far Better World
A white supremacist group recently announced plans to march and rally in Jena, Louisiana on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 21, 2008. These white racists, who call themselves the “Nationalist Movement,” are billing the event as “Jena Justice Day—No to Jena 6, No to King.” And they are very clear about what this means. In what was basically a free advertisement disguised as an article in the Jena Times, these cavemen kluckers were quoted encouraging people to bring homemade signs calling for jailing the Jena 6, opposing the Martin Luther King holiday, and “down with communism.” They suggested that people come in U.S. military or Confederate Civil War uniforms, and they even encouraged people to DISPLAY NOOSES!!
As for these racists and their march, we have one thing to say: THE DAY IS LONG SINCE PAST WHEN VIGILANTE RACISTS RUNNING AMOK AND TERRORIZING BLACK PEOPLE IS TOLERABLE. Go crawl back under your miserable rocks, and get out of the way.
But for those who argue that the Jena 6 case is about six Black youth who need to be punished for beating up a white student…and NOT about nooses being hung on a “whites-only” tree…this alone should make it very clear that this case is truly all about the fact that the nooses hung at Jena High School stood for a whole history and present-day reality of racism, oppression and discrimination…AND the fact that Black students resisted this.
The system came down HARD on six Black youth to make the point—that they will not allow defiant rebellion against the status quo of racist unequal justice, segregation and KKK terror. From the very beginning, high school administrators, city officials, the DA and judges AND officials from the U.S. Justice Department worked together to push forward the outrageous prosecution of the Jena 6. But as word spread throughout the country a real grassroots movement grew. On September 20, tens of thousands of Black people from all over the country demonstrated in Jena, and many more protested in other cities and towns.
But KKK-types then jumped out in a reactionary counter-attack. Families of the Jena 6 got death threats and a white supremacist website encouraged vigilante action against them by posting their names and addresses. As a result of the struggle of the people, the courts were forced to release one of the Jena 6, Mychal Bell, who had been unjustly imprisoned for 10 months. But no sooner was he out than they threw him right back in, supposedly for probation violation from “previous offenses.” Then the DA, the Jena Times newspaper, and the mayor went on a mission in the media to strike back, saying the real “victim” in all this is the white student, Justin Barker, who the Jena 6 are accused of beating up. And the media has also been a launching pad for vilifying the Jena 6 as gangsters and thugs. But support for the Jena 6 has continued to grow, especially among students, and in November thousands of people marched in DC against racist hate crimes, demanding that the Jena 6 be free.
But the DA is going forward with the prosecution of the Jena 6 (see “Update: The Battle to Free the Jena 6,” online at revcom.us). And now white supremacists are saying they will march with their nooses in Jena.
There is a real battle, a profound political struggle, going on that must take off to higher levels, with two sides fighting over a question that, right now, concentrates the oppression of Black people: WHAT WILL BE THE OUTCOME OF THE JENA 6 CASE?
And What Is Your “Southern Way of Life”?
The case of the Jena 6 shines a spotlight on the unequal oppressive social relations and institutions that exist today and are brutally enforced. This is why this case has struck such a nerve among so many Black people.
AND it is also why it has struck such a nerve among the most despicable and hateful proponents of white supremacy. And it is also why these white supremacists have come out swinging in defense of what they call their way of life.
But let’s look at Jena as an example of that “way of life.” Jena is segregated—where people live, where people hang out. The Black neighborhoods are mostly poor and neglected. You walk down the streets of the small downtown—you don’t see a lot of Black people, especially none working in any of the offices or stores. People in some Black neighborhoods will tell you the city doesn’t even come in to pick up the garbage, that they have to go dump their own garbage somewhere.
Caseptla Bailey, the mother of Robert Bailey (one of the Jena 6), is 56 years old and a former Air Force officer. She has a degree in business management, but says she cannot get a job as a bank teller. She lives in an area in Jena called Ward 10 where the majority of Black people live in trailers or wooden shacks. She says whites don’t live here at all. She says, “We want to live better, we want better housing.”
Talk to other Black people who live in Jena. They’ll tell you about how a Black man was stomped to death by a gang of white guys because he bumped into a white woman. You’ll hear other accounts of Black people being attacked, beaten up, killed. Maybe it was a Black man who dated a white woman. Maybe it was a Black youth with an attitude a white cop didn’t like. Or maybe it was someone attacked just for being Black.
It’s not that surprising there was a “whites-only” tree at Jena High School.
On the road leading right out of Jena, you pass a big mansion on a hill, standing all by itself. There’s a big iron fence around it, with a huge gate blocking the driveway. The whole thing is adorned with American AND Confederate flags. Stop at a gas station on the way to Jena and go into the gift shop and see trinkets for sale—ceramic figures of degrading caricatures of Black people. You see t-shirts for sale with Confederate flags and slogans openly promoting white supremacy.
In a place like Jena, you feel the echoes of slavery. You can’t help but be reminded that on this very ground, in these very places, kidnapped Africans were bought and sold, shackled and worked to death. Children ripped from their parents’ hands at the auction block. Plantations where Black people created tremendous wealth for their owners. And white slave-catchers hunted down runaway slaves. THIS economic system of slavery is at the very foundation of the whole way the capitalist system developed and grew in this country.
It took nothing less than the Civil War to end slavery in this country. But even this did not end the systemic oppression and super-exploitation of Black people. Instead, capitalism “re-integrated” millions of Black people in the South into new forms of oppression. Now they were to be exploited as sharecroppers, sometimes working on the same plantation land they, or their parents and grandparents, had worked on as slaves. And coming out of this and in turn propping up all this was the persistent “Southern culture” of KKK cross burnings, lynchings, and Jim Crow laws that required “white only” and “Black only” public schools, drinking fountains, trains, buses and all kinds of other public places.
And this continues right down to today. White racists—admitted and otherwise—will argue that they are just upholding “proud traditions,” “Southern culture,” and “the way of life our parents and grandparents have all enjoyed.” And down in Jena some who loudly say that they are not racist will, in the same conversation, tell you that Black people are dangerous, lazy, criminals with a lower innate intelligence than white people. This is the kind of culture and thinking that in turn bolsters and justifies all the ways that capitalism profits off of the exploitation and oppression of the masses of Black people—subjecting them to the lowest-paid jobs, the worst working conditions, the worst neighborhoods with little or no social services, and the highest unemployment rates.
These unequal and oppressive relations have been and continue to be brutally enforced. And while Black people no longer mainly face widespread lynching and cross-burnings—though the KKK would like to bring them back and there was a cross-burning just recently “up south” in Peekskill, New York—they do face the widespread terror of police brutality and murder.
Now these KKKers have come way out there, and no doubt some of the “good whites” will distance themselves. But these kluckers have been produced by a very specific society, with very specific economic relations and a specific history. In this country the exploitation and oppression of Black people have been built into the whole process of the accumulation of wealth by the capitalist class, from its very beginnings, and first the slaveholders and now these capitalists have built up a whole superstructure of ideas to justify it. At first, it was the Bible; now they still use the Bible, but add onto it pseudo-scientific bullshit about “inherited IQs” and vicious non-stop television shows like Cops, etc.
The division in this country between white people and Black people—and expressions this takes in lynchings and police murder, in “everyday” discrimination and the pervasive racist ideas and attitudes—is deeply rooted in this economic structure and the social relations that go along with this, and it is pushed forward and supported by conscious policies of the big capitalist-imperialists who run this society. Here’s what Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP, said about this in an article reprinted in Revolution earlier this year:
“Within the U.S. itself, one of the main and most ugly features of the capitalist-imperialist system is the great division between people of the European-American nation (white people) and peoples of color. This great division is not just a matter of racist ideas and attitudes, among white people in particular—although that is one expression of it. This division is deeply rooted in the historical development and the present-day economic and social structure of U.S. society. In imperialist America, with its whole foundation of slavery and genocide, with its whole history and continuing reality of white supremacy, the European-American nation is the oppressor nation. People of European descent, even those who are poor, powerless, and exploited—and even those who may have faced certain aspects of discrimination and prejudice, at least for a certain time, as part of immigrant ‘ethnic groups’—still share the status of being ‘white’ in America, with everything that means. They enjoy certain privileges in relation to people of other nationalities who are the oppressed nationalities. To put it simply, if you are ‘white’ in America, you may be treated badly, you may even suffer horribly at the hands of the system, particularly if you are without wealth and power, but you will not be subjected to certain kinds of discrimination and oppression that people of color cannot escape, even those who do accumulate a certain amount of wealth.
“At the same time, proletarians of all races and nationalities, who are exploited and dictated to under the rule of the capitalists, are all part of one, single, multinational proletariat. Fundamentally, they share a common fate and common interest as a class. For the class-conscious proletariat, for all those who become aware of and take up the revolutionary mission of the proletarian class, one of their most important goals is to completely abolish national oppression—to put an end to discrimination and inequality between nations and, in the U.S. in particular, to put an end to white supremacy and the domination of the European-American nation over peoples of color. This is an absolutely necessary and crucial part of the all-around revolutionary struggle to overthrow and eliminate this system and all forms of exploitation, inequality and oppression.” (from “After the Revolution: Dealing with ‘Racial Divisions,’” reprinted as Part III of the Black History Month series available online at revcom.us/blackhistorymonth)
A Better World Is Possible—
Get with the Revolution!
Human society has come to a place in its historical development where THERE IS NO NEED FOR THINGS TO BE THIS WAY. There is the basis for humanity to get beyond all this. Many people want and dream of a better world, where nooses will only exist on display in historical museums. The necessity and possibility exists to build a whole new economic and social system, a socialist society, in which the masses of people are mobilized and supported in getting rid of all oppressive and exploitative relations, including the oppression of Black people.
But that is only possible through revolution. This new system would get rid of the old capitalist economy that has fed on and reinforced white supremacy, and exploitation of all kinds, all over the world. It will bring in new political forms in which the masses can move to uproot the institutions and transform the thinking that has gone along with, and reinforced that exploitation. In regard to the struggle against white supremacy, that will be an extremely critical front—and the new state would both promote equality and integration throughout society, while it also brought into being areas of autonomy for Black people and other oppressed nationalities (as well as upholding the right of self-determination for Black people).
The article from Chairman Avakian which we cited earlier discusses in some depth what this would look like, including the relationship between integration in the society overall and the right to autonomous areas. He then goes on say:
“At the same time, as we have also made clear: These land and autonomy policies of the proletarian state will not mean that the oppressed peoples will have to live in these areas—which would amount to a new form of segregation. Instead the new proletarian state, while favoring and encouraging unity and integration, will ensure these formerly oppressed peoples’ right to autonomy as part of the policy of promoting real equality between nations and peoples.”
And, somewhat later in this same important article, he relates this crucial struggle against national oppression and inequality to the goal of transforming all of society:
“At the same time, there will not only be the general goal of developing and strengthening the unity of the proletariat and masses of people of all nationalities, on the basis of equality and the common struggle to radically transform all of society. There will also be concrete policies to make this a reality. The socialist state will encourage and promote the development of comradely relations among people of all nationalities, in every sphere of society; and, more specifically, it will foster and provide for the development of communities and neighborhoods, as well as workplaces and schools and other institutions, where people of all races and nationalities not only live and work side-by-side but actually develop close and deep relations of friendship and mutual support in the context of the overall struggle to revolutionize society, to eliminate and eradicate all inequalities and oppressive divisions among people. This struggle will be, and can only be, carried out on the basis of the increasingly conscious and voluntary unity and struggle of the masses of people of all races and nationalities. This is in accordance with and is a very important expression of the advance toward the final aim of communism, world-wide.
“Mao Tsetung gave a very concentrated and powerful description of the communist future, as the era when all of humanity consciously and voluntarily transform themselves and the world. This will be a world without oppression and exploitation, without differences and barriers of class or of nation—truly a global community of freely-associating human beings, sharing a fundamental unity and giving expression to great diversity. But, in order to carry out the world-historic revolutionary transformation to achieve communism, it is necessary to keep in mind the point emphasized by Lenin: The achievement of communism can only be realized through the exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the new socialist society, as a transition to the abolition of all relations of oppression and exploitation and all class distinctions (and the abolition of the state as such, as the means for one class to suppress others). So, too, Lenin added, this world-historic transition will be marked by the struggle to bring about the liberation of colonies and oppressed nations and to achieve equality between all nations, as the necessary path to the ultimate abolition of national boundaries and of separate nations altogether, and the creation of the communist world community of freely-associating human beings. This must be the guiding principle of the proletariat in handling all the complexities of the struggle to overcome every aspect of unequal relations between races and nationalities, every vestige of national oppression, in every sphere of society and everywhere in the world.”
When you think about all this, it is truly inspiring. And it is also no wonder that these Klan types encourage their followers to bring signs saying “down with communism.” But from a historical standpoint, their day is past. Humanity needs revolution and communism!
“Jim Crow Got Him Locked Up”
At the November 16 march around the so-called “Department of Justice” in D.C., CNN anchor Don Lemon interviewed Marcus Jones, who is the father of Mychal Bell — one of the Jena 6. Lemon attacked Marcus Jones with the charge that his son was “no angel,” and Marcus Jones corrected him on who put the Jena 6 in jail, and for what.
LEMON: I’ve got to ask you this because people say you know what, Mychal and—the start of the march, people saying, you know, we can’t condone what’s wrong. Obviously, Mychal did something wrong. And are you saying—how are you saying he should be treated in the justice system? He’s done something wrong. Obviously, the Justice Department you feel has not treated him properly. But then, he’s no angel in all of that. That’s what folks are saying.
JONES: It’s the illegal prosecution and the charges that have been brung up on Mychal. I mean, people have their own judgment, they can read what they want to read on the Internet or whatever, it is illegal prosecution, illegal judgment that is going on with my son now. My son don’t have his self locked up. Jim Crow got him locked up. And that’s what I’m here for, the march against the Justice Department for them to end Jim Crow.
LEMON: All right, let’s talk about—more about your son. He’s a young man, obviously, you’re a young father. People talk about cleaning up their own backyard. How much—we’re going to keep walking slowly when they go. How much do you think men should be involved, especially African-American men, in their own sons’ lives. Don’t you think that would make a huge difference?
JONES: No, I mean, just being involved like I am now, I haven’t failed my son in no kind of way in the present or in the past.
LEMON: Yes, that’s it?
JONES: That’s it.
Update:
The Battle to Free the Jena 6
As we go to press, the second trial of Mychal Bell—one of the Jena 6—is scheduled for December 6. Mychal Bell faces charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy. His first conviction was thrown out by an appeals court, which ruled that he should not have been tried as an adult. Judge J.P. Mauffrey then imposed a gag order preventing people involved in the case from speaking out, and refused to let the media cover the trial or see court documents. On November 21, in response to a legal challenge by a coalition of news media, another judge ruled that the proceedings in the juvenile court trial must be open to the media and overturned the gag order. Judge Mauffrey is attempting to appeal that decision. At this writing, the December 6 trial date is on, and will mark a critical nodal point in the battle to Free the Jena 6.
The case of the Jena 6 goes back to September 2006, when Black students sat under the “whites-only tree” in the schoolyard of Jena High School, in rural Louisiana. The next morning when students came to school, nooses hung from the tree. In defiant protest, dozens of Black students courageously stood under the tree that morning. This protest was followed by a visit to the school by District Attorney Reed Walters and local police officers. Walters warned Black students at an all-school assembly against further protests against the nooses: “With one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear.”
After a series of incidents where Black students were threatened with a gun and jumped by white racists, a white student at Jena High, who reportedly was taunting Black students with racist insults, was jumped by Black students. He was treated at a hospital and attended a school ceremony that night. The next day, December 4, 2006, DA Walters made good on his threat. Six Black students were arrested and charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. They were held on tens of thousands of dollars in jail—most for many months, with charges that could bring decades in jail.
On June 28, 2007, Mychal Bell was convicted after a three-day trial, by an all-white jury. The prosecutor called 16 witnesses, mostly white students. The court-appointed defense attorney called no witnesses. Mychal Bell was convicted of two felonies: aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery. On September 14, in response to an appeal by a new set of defense lawyers and in the face of a growing nationwide movement to free the Jena 6, Louisiana’s Third Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Mychal Bell’s conviction of second-degree battery on the grounds that he should not have been tried as an adult. Bell was released from Jail briefly in the wake of the massive march on Jena, on September 20, but then sent back to jail by the juvenile court judge. He remains in jail, while the remainder of the Jena 6 are on bail facing charges in adult or juvenile court.
