Thousands Rally to Support Jena 6
CBNNews.com
September 20, 2007
CBNNews.com - Thousands of protestors descended on the tiny town of Jena, La., Thursday, in support of six black teenagers jailed for the beating of a white classmate.
Watch CBN News reporter Charlene Israel analysis of Thursday's events in Jena.
At the center of the protests is a group of black teenagers called the Jena Six.
Their story has sparked a new civil rights gathering that the Rev. Jesse Jackson has likened to historic protesting events in Montgomery and Selma, Ala., and Little Rock, Ark.
The controversy heated up late last year when six black students at Jena High School in Central Louisiana were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy.
The six were arrested after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a concussion and multiple bruises.
The fight was considered an extension of an incident that started after a black student sat under a tree in the schoolyard where only white students sat. The next day three nooses were hanging from the tree.
Fighting ensued, including someone even setting fire to a wing of the high school.
As a disciplinary action, the white students responsible for the nooses were suspended. But the Jena Six were arrested and are facing up to 100 years in prison without parole.
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.
Critics allege the cases show authorities in this predominantly white town are disproportionately harsh toward blacks. The claim was all but proven when an all-white jury convicted the first of the teens to face trial, 17-year-old Mychal Bell, of aggravated battery and conspiracy charges. He was slapped with a sentence of 22 years in prison.
District Attorney Reed Walters denied racism was involved at a news conference Wednesday.
Walters said the suffering of the beating victim, Justin Barker, has been largely ignored.
"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.
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 adults under Louisiana law, and that Bell, the only juvenile charged as an adult, had a prior criminal record.
Bell's conviction was overturned last week when a state appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult. Although Thursday's protest had been planned to coincide with Bell's sentencing, organizers decided to continue with plans after the conviction was thrown out.
Bell remains in jail while prosecutors prepare an appeal.
For many Jena residents, Thursday's march was the result of overblown and unfair media coverage.
"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.
Thursday's march was to take protesters past the school - and the stump of the tree, which authorities had removed in July.
Source: The Associated Press, ABC News, CBN News
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