Sharpton On Jenna 6

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JENA, La. - Thousands of chanting demonstrators filled the streets of this little Louisiana town Thursday in support of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.




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 jailed teens.

Sharpton told the Associated Press that he and Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and William Jefferson, D-La., will press the House Judiciary Committee next week to summon the district attorney to explain his actions before Congress.

This could be the beginning of a 21st century's civil rights movement challenge disparities in the justice system, he said, and he said he planned a November march in Washington.

"What we need is federal intervention to protect people from Southern injustice," Sharpton told the AP. "Our fathers in the 1960's had to penetrate the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, we have to do the same thing."

The six black teens were charged a few months after three white teens were accused of hanging nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. The white teens were suspended from school but weren't prosecuted. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder. That charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.

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.

President Bush, asked about the Jena case during a news conference, said he understood the emotions and the FBI was monitoring the situation.

"The events in Louisiana have saddened me," the president said. "All of us in America want there to be, you know, fairness when it comes to justice."

Thousands of demonstrators clad in black converged on the local courthouse and a nearby park Thursday morning to protest the disparity in the charged teenagers' treatment. 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 drum.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke to one crowd. Dennis Courtland Hayes, interim president and CEO of the NAACP, was also there.

"People are saying, `That's enough, and we're not taking it any more,'" Hayes said.

Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, described the scene as 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."

District Attorney Reed Walters stressed on Wednesday that race had nothing to do with the charges in Jena.

Walters 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."

Bell, 16 at the time of the December 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 rally, heavily promoted on black Web sites, blogs, radio and publications, 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.

Sharpton admonished the demonstrators to remain peaceful, and there were no reports of trouble as of midmorning. White residents in the predominantly white town of 3,000 have largely been reluctant to comment, saying privately that the town was being unfairly portrayed.

"I believe in people standing up for what's right," said resident Ricky Coleman, 46, who is white. "What bothers me is this town being labeled racist. I'm not racist."

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 replied that Jena High School administrators mishandled the incidents.

Another white resident, Bill Williamson, 59, said he tried to convince visitors that the town was being treated unfairly and that Mychal Bell belonged in jail.

"I think we changed one man's mind," he said. "But most of these people don't want to hear."

The demonstrators included large numbers of civil rights movement veterans and college students from across the region who weren't alive in the 1960s.

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

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

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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070920/...4klGOJKYWs0NUE

 

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Now lets see what Jackson has to say!!!

They cut down the "white tree" at Jena High School last month -- about a year too late. On Thursday, a mass civil rights march will take place in Jena, La., demanding justice for the Jena Six -- the six young men unjustly charged with felonies, jailed on prohibitive bonds and facing years in prison. As we march for the Jena Six, we will protest a racially biased U.S. criminal justice system that is creating explosive conditions across this country.
Jena, La., was Klan country, and racial divides still run deep. At Jena High School, there was a "white tree" where it was known only white kids could sit. Blacks and whites sat separately in the auditorium. Last year, at the beginning of school, a freshman asked the principal if blacks could sit under the "white tree." The principal said they could sit anywhere they wanted. The next day, three nooses -- in school colors -- were hung from the ''white tree." In the South, a noose is not a laughing matter. This is a hate crime: a direct racial threat in a region with a terrible history of hanging.

The principal took it seriously and expelled the white students responsible. The school board and superintendent overruled him, dismissing it as a "prank," reducing the expulsions to three-day, in-school "suspensions." Racial tensions rose. A sit-in took place, followed by a series of fights. Then a white youth, apparently taunting an African American who had been beaten, was thrown to the ground and kicked. He went to the hospital, but was released that night and attended the school's "ring ceremony."

The prosecutor had six black teenagers arrested and charged with attempted murder. The first, Mychal Bell, a 16-year-old sophomore star on the school football team, was tried as an adult for aggravated assault and conspiracy, both felonies. He was tried before a white judge with an all-white jury. He had only a court-appointed counsel who called no witnesses. The prosecutor argued that the gym shoes on his feet constituted a "deadly weapon." He was convicted, jailed with prohibitive bond and faced 20 years in prison.

This month, the appellate court ruled that he should not have been tried as an adult. The prosecutor has appealed that ruling. And astonishingly, Bell remains in jail, a fact that intensifies the struggle around the nation to free the Jena 6 and will no doubt swell the crowds at Thursday's demonstration.

Across this country, there are two justice systems -- one for blacks and one for whites. Black (and Latino) young men are not more likely to commit crimes than whites. But they are more likely to be stopped by police, more likely to be arrested if stopped, more likely to be charged if arrested, more likely to be jailed if convicted, more likely to be charged with felonies, and more likely to be tried and imprisoned as adults.

One of every eight young black men in his 20s is in jail or prison on any given day. This isn't just a Southern problem. A study of five states in the Northwest and Midwest showed that blacks are incarcerated at 10 times the rate of whites.

Mass incarceration of African Americans, mostly for nonviolent crimes, is poisonous and destructive. Today, according to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, bans on ex-felons voting is the "biggest impediment to voting since the poll tax," with more than 5 million people of color losing their right to vote. Thursday in Jena, the protest will begin. But it won't end there. This situation is explosive -- not only in Jena but across the country.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/561760,CST-EDT-jesse18.article

 

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Anymore?

 

[Mr_Stingray]