The National Association of Black Journalists sent a call for members to cover the story of the Jena 6. Thanks to my friends, including Wendi and Blair Smith and Theo Perry, who sent me additional information about this case, which many of you have read about and seen on CNN by now. Here’s the story:
Strange Fruit Still Grows in the South
In September 2006, a Black student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana asked his vice principal for permission to sit under a tree. The tree, an oak in the school courtyard, was the school’s de facto whites-only gathering spot. The vice principal told the Black student he could sit where he wanted. However, the day after he and his friends, all African American, sat under the tree, three nooses were hanging from its branches.
The principal wanted to expel the students who hung the nooses, but the school district committee reduced their penalty to a three-day suspension after the superintendent dismissed the noose hanging as a “prank.” Racial tensions grew in the school over the next three months.
What Time is It?
Here are some facts this small southern town:
3,000 – number of Jena residents
350 – number of Black residents
2 – number of Black teachers in the town’s public schools
1 – number of Black police officers
1 – number of African Americans on the 9-member school board
Jena is in LaSalle Parish, and the parish’s 10 member, all-male government includes one African American. When Ku Klux Klan member and former Grand Wizard David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana, he carried the white vote in LaSalle Parish, according to ColorofChange.org. Families in the parish earn about 60% of the national average, and less than 10% of small businesses are Black-owned.
“The Battle Royal”
Here’s another fact about this town: In 2000 the Juvenile Correctional Center for Youth in Jena was closed after only 2 years of operation. Guards physically choked children in the facility, and the US Department of Justice sued the prison because guards paid youth inmates to fight each other and laughed when teens under their care in the facility tried to commit suicide.
Time Line
September 2006 –
1)Black student asks to sit under whites-only tree
2)nooses hung day after Black teens congregate under the oak tree in the school courtyard
3)principal wants to expel students who hung symbol of generations of physical violence against African Americans
4)superintendent overrules principal, calls the noose-hanging a “prank”
5)Black students gather under “whites-only” tree in protest of the superintendent’s decision
6)District Attorney Reed Walters visits Jena High School and threatens the Black students gathered in protest, telling them he, “can be your best friends or worst enemy…I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen,” according to Color of Change.
October, 2006
student scuffles in school continue and lead to fights off-campus
Thursday, November 30th
someone sets fire to the school’s main academic building
Friday, December 1st
a Black student attending a predominantly white party is beaten
Saturday, December 2nd –
1)a white man pulls a shotgun on a group of young Black men at the Gotta Go convenience store
2)Black men manage to take the gun away from him
3)the young Black men who took the gun are arrested
4)no charges are filed against the white man who threatened them with his shotgun
Monday, December 3rd –
1)a white student, Justin Barker, a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunts Black students and calls them “niggers.”
2)after lunch, a group of Black students beats white student
3)white student taken to hospital for treatment and released by emergency room that day
4)white student attends a party that same evening.
And Now…
And now at least one white family has left Jena because of “racist stuff” in the town, but the focus is on Mychal Bell, a student and football star who was arrested with five other Black male students after the beating of Justin Barker. Seventeen years old now, Mychal was arrested when he was 16.
I said, “What Time is It?”
Mychal was convicted by an all-white jury, before a white judge, in a local court where he was represented by a white public defender. Though a teen, Mychal was tried as an adult. The public defender never called a single witness. The jury took only 3 hours to reach their decision.
Judge JP Mauffray Jr. of the 28th Judicial District Court vacated one charge against Mychal but left the other, a charge of second-degree aggravated battery, even though he agreed that Mychal should have been tried in juvenile court. Bell’s attorneys are now seeking an emergency appeal in a desperate attempt to keep this child out of prison. The possible sentence? Mychal now faces 22 years. He and five other African American boys face decades locked up for a school fight. After Mychal, the next child in the Jena Six, Theodore Shaw, faces 20 – 80 years behind bars.
Tony Brown named the group of boys “The Jena 6.” Michael Baisden broadcast live from Jena in support of the Jena 6. And the NAACP letter of support seeks justice for The Jena 6.
The oak tree where the all-white students congregated, where Black students dared to sit, where nooses hung, has been cut down. The stump must be an ugly reminder to students and Jena residents of the racial strife in their town. Cutting the tree, a living thing, really helps none of the people involved, though, does it? Like racism, a seemingly living thing in this country and around the world, chopping away at different parts does nothing. To kill racism, we must get to its roots. If we don’t, if there is no justice for the Jena 6, racial tension will simply grow. Again.
To Help, You Can:
Check worldwide coverage of the Jena 6, including The Chicago Tribune, The London Observer, CNN.com, the BBC, and Color of Change.
Also, sign the petition seeking justice for The Jena 6. Sign the letters addressed to Governor Blanco and DA Walters.
Read even more at Democracy Now.
Listen to coverage on NPR.
Comment(s)
Thank you so much for spotlighting this ugly crime against blacks and the ongoing struggle for people to sit and live anywhere they want.
Blessings,
Theo
Comment(s)
You asked what time is it? It’s time for us to realize that for as far as we’ve come, it isn’t far enough. It’s time to get a backhoe, dig up that stump (and stumps like it everywhere) by its racist roots and not allow it to stand as a monument to a town’s utter disregard and lack of respect for the dignity of every life–including that of a tree.
Comment(s)
What time is it? It’s time to wake the f*ck up!!! Believe me this is not an aberration. I repeat, this is not an aberration.
Wake the f*ck up!!!
Comment(s)
Please visit this website to help support the Jena 6. They are also selling Tee-Shirts to raise funds for their legal fees. (The cut off date may have passed but it is never to late to participate!) PEACE!http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/shirts/
Comment(s)
LYRICS TO FREE THE JENA 6 By Askari X
Justice for Everybody Not African
Indians and Latin kids lock them up and pack them in
Crime pays so the DA will trap them in
It’s the new millennium slave trafficking
Call Weezy, Call Baby, Call BG, Call Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, Call Master P
Soulja Slim would have rode but he in the ground
Somebody call Young Turk he ’bout to get out
Call Romeo he ballin’ on a scholarship
Don’t be silenced by record label politics
Original Man so I’ll be the genesis you know what the mission is:
We gonna FREE THE JENA 6
Jena, Louisiana they call it the Deep South
In other words black folks keep out
Or stay in your place its OK if you’re playing it safe
Or a wide grin stay on your face
Kids raised to hate
Before age 8 they learn to tie nooses this is what a lie produces
And 10 years later you beside the student in high school
In his mind you’re a visitor N—- it’s my school
This is my room don’t you even try coon
It sets the stage for a showdown at high noon
Lunchtime in the cafeteria one mind thinking blacks inferior
One time under a tree that cracks the exterior and reveals the truth
Must of forgot that you’re still a spook
You’ll remember when you see this noose see this tree was used
To hang your ancestors after we’d party and barbecue
This led to rising tension when the ones who did it got a brief suspension
And you know our spirit we will not surrender we always fight back
It’s on now its white vs. black like a war
A black kid was jumped it opened the door
A white man pulled a shotgun at a convenience store on black children
They didn’t put their hands to the ceiling
They disarmed the man and then ran from the building
Unless you’re born black you can’t understand the feeling
They beat that boy down they never planned to kill him
Them young brothers just wanted to defend they friends
And in the end to suspend is all it should have been
But they went further
They was charged as grown men for attempted murder
For a fight in high school
They were made an example in Jena that whites rule
And you won’t see this on the Nightly News
Cause they’ll likely choose dog fighting and blues
Michael Vick being stripped of his lightning shoes
Not 6 teenagers being charged despite the rules
Or a racist prosecutor trying to take our future
This is madness children behind bars this is savage
As we spend money on cars, jewelry and fabric
Our children need our help to heal this damage
When you don’t speak the truth watch your realness vanish
So sign the petition organize for the victims
Please give your money, your time, and your wisdom
And to Mychal Bell were gonna fight for your freedom
And we want a million dollars for every night you keep him
It’s Justice for Everybody Not African
Indians and Latin kids lock them up and pack them in
Crime pays so the DA will trap them in
It’s the new millennium slave trafficking
Call Weezy, Call Baby, Call BG, Call Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, Call Master P
Soulja Slim would have rode but he in the ground
Somebody call Young Turk he bout to get out
Call Romeo he ballin’ on a scholarship
Don’t be silenced by record label politics
Original Man so I’ll be the genesis you know what the mission is:
We gonna FREE THE JENA 6