Author Topic: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'  (Read 871 times)

Elano

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In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« on: September 20, 2007, 01:38:26 AM »

GROUNDS OF DISCONTENT: Last September, after a group of black students were allowed to sit under a tree on the unofficial "white" side of the grounds, a group of white students hung nooses from its branches.

Activists are expected to converge on this tiny town, protesting the stiff charges for black teens who beat a white youth.

JENA, LA. -- -- Beau Jones, Jena High School's gangly white quarterback, had one question as he parked his white pickup truck outside LaSalle Parish Courthouse: Was all this -- the jostling camera crews and row of satellite trucks -- really for Mychal Bell?

Bell, his former running back, was inside the courthouse, wearing handcuffs and ankle shacklesand meeting with the Rev. Al Sharpton. Bell is one of six black teenagers charged with attempted murder for beating a white classmate, raising criticism that justice in this predominantly white Southern town is not colorblind.

"This isn't Jena," Jones, 16, said softly as he stared at the metal barricades around the local stores, the surveillance cameras being installed across the street, the gleaming limousine that had whisked civil rights leader Sharpton to this tiny tobacco town. "We're now on the map as a racist town, but the town I know, everyone pretty much gets along."

Today, thousands of protesters from across the country are expected to march through Jena (pronounced JEE-nuh), dwarfing its population of about 3,000. Not even the organizers know how many people to expect, but some say it could become a major civil rights march.

"Again, we come to the South to raise new hope, not to condemn," Sharpton told reporters outside the courthouse. "This is not a march against Jena."

Yet with predictions ranging from 1,000 to 60,000 protesters, many locals are apprehensive. The march has been publicized on talk radio and Internet blogs.

Jena High School and LaSalle Parish Library will close for the day. Most local business owners planned to close their stores too. Activists, they noted, vowed they would not spend money in Jena.

Logistical preparations for a large protest in a town with only two stoplights is a challenge for law enforcement officials, particularly with so many businesses expected to be closed. A spokesman for the Louisiana State Police said Wednesday that law enforcement from across the region would assist state troopers and police officers. Portable toilets were to be installed downtown, and the American Red Cross was to provide water.

Many residents of this town, which is 86% white, said they resented the media invasion, arguing that the conflict at the high school had been blown out of proportion, fed by journalists and activists' stereotypes of small Southern towns.

What has become known as the "Jena Six" case began last September, when a black high school student sat under a tree traditionally, although not officially, reserved for whites. The next day, three nooses were hanging from the tree. Three white students were briefly suspended.

Then, in December, a white student was beaten up by six black schoolmates outside the school gymnasium. The black students were charged with attempted murder.

Eventually, those charges were reduced to offenses such as aggravated battery. In June, Bell was found guilty of second-degree battery charges. On Friday, the state 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal threw out his conviction, saying he had been improperly tried as an adult. Bell, now 17, remains in custody while prosecutors decide whether to file new charges against him in juvenile court.

Many locals say Jena is no worse than the cities where protesters are coming from.

Some concede that the black students were dealt with too harshly. Some believe the nooses were just a childish prank; others say the three white students involved were just bad kids, not representative of the overall community.

"We don't have a sign outside saying blacks are not welcome," said Pat Randall, 55, owner of Fabrics and More, a block away from the courthouse.

"They talk about nooses and hate, but this is an integrated community," said Evelyn Talley, 68, who before coming to Jena worked as a teacher for 17 years in Southern California. "At least we mix here. And there are no gangs."

As Sharpton entered the courthouse to meet Bell on Wednesday, scores of reporters surrounded his media representative, quizzing her about today's march from LaSalle Parish Courthouse to Jena High School -- specifically which celebrities would be attending.

Rachel Noerdlinger reeled off a list that included Tyler Perry, writer of the film "Diary of a Mad Black Woman"; Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; and hip-hop artist Mos Def.

"Oprah?" asked someone.

"No," said Noerdlinger. "And Will Smith is not coming."

Pam Gresham, who works at a bail bonds store opposite the courthouse, tried to ignore the camera crews as she took a cigarette break on her front porch. She said she would not attend today's protest.

"If all these people would actually see and talk to the people, even go to a football game, they would see it's not a bad town," she said. "We all play as one. We all cheer."
 

everlast1986

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2007, 08:36:32 AM »
I've been following this story for a few weeks now. Crazy ass shit.
 

bicoastal

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2007, 12:21:23 PM »
1,000 to 60,000????? the town population is only 3,000!

amazing.
 

Smoke Break

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2007, 01:04:20 PM »
I dont know why, but i'm interested in what kind of reaction we'd see if 6 white kids beat up one black kid.  Somehow I think Sharpton would still be there.
 

Sikotic™

Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2007, 06:09:09 PM »
Throw the Jena 6 and those other guys that were causing shit all in jail. Fuck em. They pull this racist shit up in schools, which is suppose to be an institution for learning, and turn the whole place into a circus.

As a matter of fact, drop a nuke on the entire South except for Tennesse, Florida, and Atlanta. These motherfuckers will always be 50 years behind us.
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BANANAS

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2007, 11:44:37 PM »


I think that nigga lives in LA blood. we got idiots all over. (plus u gotta bomb tennesse too, family isnt an excuse, sorry i just feel the same way, bombs  away)
 

Sikotic™

Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2007, 12:21:35 AM »


I think that nigga lives in LA blood. we got idiots all over. (plus u gotta bomb tennesse too, family isnt an excuse, sorry i just feel the same way, bombs  away)
Inglewood to be exact.
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BANANAS

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2007, 12:24:10 AM »
LOL, good old inglewood, where dreams are made
 

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2007, 12:58:08 AM »
Throw the Jena 6 and those other guys that were causing shit all in jail. Fuck em. They pull this racist shit up in schools, which is suppose to be an institution for learning, and turn the whole place into a circus.

As a matter of fact, drop a nuke on the entire South except for Tennesse, Florida, and Atlanta. These motherfuckers will always be 50 years behind us.
Truth, truth, and more truth. But bomb Atlanta too.
 

Elano

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2007, 06:28:18 AM »
Thousands March On Louisiana Town To Support 'Jena Six'

Mos Def and Bun B support the Jena Six in Jena, Louisiana

Bun B, Mos Def join the crowds: 'Shame on everybody who's not here,' Mos fumes.

JENA, Louisiana — "Justice Even Needs Assistance" reads the shirt adorning one middle-age lady, who traveled with her church group from Dallas to Jena. She's sitting on a bench in front of what used to be a Jena High School administration building on East High School Drive. The building was burned to a crisp on November 30, 2006, in what was believed to be arson, with blacks and whites blaming each other. The walls are gone and you can actually see part of the hallway from outside.

"No justice! No peace until the six are free," college students repeatedly yell as they stand in defiance on a huge lump of dirt. The spot is where the infamous "whites-only tree" — as some media outlets have been referring to it — once stood before it was chopped down by administrators earlier this summer. White students allegedly hung nooses on the tree the day after a black student decided to sit under it.

A few feet away, a man with long dreadlocks starts to rail.

"Where was all of this when Patrick Dorismond got shot? What about Sean Bell?" he ranted, recalling two black males who were fatally shot by New York police officers in March 2000 and November 2006, respectively. "We should have been doing this," he rants.

"I wanna see Ludacris and P. Diddy out here," he continues. "Where's Young Jeezy when I need him? Where's Kanye? The Louis Vuitton Don is not here. ... What I am hoping is that it's not like Easter, where everybody goes to church to hear the sermon, then forgets the message the next week."

Despite the man's fervent dialogue, the setting at the school has been very peaceful. It almost feels more like going to a museum rather than a protest march. Although Jena High's doors are closed, people are walking around the campus taking pictures and talking among themselves.

A little later, the Reverend Jesse Jackson takes command with a speech at the LaSalle Parish Courthouse.

"We will not make any concession until the parents and lawyers sign off," Jackson has the people repeat. "We will come back again and again and again until Mychal [Bell, one of the Jena Six who has been in jail for almost a year] is set free and the charges are dropped.

"We want all the boys sent to school and not to jail," Jackson continues, having the people answer him in unison.

"Our agenda, one agenda: Free Mychal Bell. Drop the charges. ... Free the Jena Six and drop the charges now."

A few miles away from the protest, Bun B and Mos Def are at a gas station meeting up. Bun had just left the march. Mos was having a hard time entering the central area because the roads leading to the heart of the protest were temporarily shut down one way. It is too crowded.


Mos' black T-shirt reads "Hip-Hop is Bigger Than the Government."

Bun's shirt simply says "Free Jena 6."

"I grew up right next to a town where it's strictly white people," Texas native Bun explains of why he got involved. "I've been privy to these small incidents of violence in these all-white towns. ... We were blessed to find out about the Jena Six and were blessed to try to make some type of impact in this community before things went too far."

Mos is disgusted that more of his peers did not show up. He reached out to a myriad of artists and couldn't figure out why they can always hop private planes to go to music-industry events but couldn't come out for the Jena Six.

"Shame on everybody who's not here," Mos fumes. "I'm f---in' mad. I'm disappointed to always be coming to these things and it's only one or two people [from the industry here]. If you ain't gonna use your voice, then be quiet. ... I'm disappointed and ashamed."

"It's no need to bite your tongue in a situation like this," Bun concurs.

When Mos leaves, he vows to get to where the people were protesting even if he had to walk several miles. Minutes later, singer Lyfe Jennings arrives.

A court hearing for Mychal Bell — the only member of the Jena 6 still in jail — has been ordered to take place in the next three days, his attorney told CNN on Thursday.

"Big shout-out to all the bike clubs who rode down," Bun B writes from Jena. "They were several hundred deep, organized and ready for action."







 

7even

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2007, 06:39:04 AM »
I'm not American so may I ask you if I got that right: Black students fuck white students up, get punished, then a horde of blacks from all over the country comes protesting, because they basically want to legalize blacks lynching whites? is that right?
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Shallow

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #11 on: September 21, 2007, 08:22:50 AM »
I dont know why, but i'm interested in what kind of reaction we'd see if 6 white kids beat up one black kid.  Somehow I think Sharpton would still be there.


Oh Sharpton would be there for sure. But he'd be calling for longer sentencing like he did when the white Duke kids were accused of raping the black stripper. Funny how he didn't apologize when the Stripper was found to be a liar.
 

Javier

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #12 on: September 21, 2007, 12:55:34 PM »
I'm not American so may I ask you if I got that right: Black students fuck white students up, get punished, then a horde of blacks from all over the country comes protesting, because they basically want to legalize blacks lynching whites? is that right?

There's been a lot of racial tension in that small town for a while.  They just want fairness...either free the minors or put all the white people on probation in jail too for pretty much the same crime. 
 

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #13 on: September 21, 2007, 01:40:04 PM »
I'm not American so may I ask you if I got that right: Black students fuck white students up, get punished, then a horde of blacks from all over the country comes protesting, because they basically want to legalize blacks lynching whites? is that right?

There's been a lot of racial tension in that small town for a while.  They just want fairness...either free the minors or put all the white people on probation in jail too for pretty much the same crime. 

All the white people in that town are beating down blacks and leaving them with concussions?
 

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Re: In La., thousands to rally for 'Jena Six'
« Reply #14 on: September 21, 2007, 01:49:30 PM »
What they are being charged with is the big issue here. Back in my day, we used to rumble each other, put folks in the hospital and get suspended for a few days from school and return. That's how it is in high schools, shit, that's how it is growin up, period. If they wanted to punish us on a criminal level, couple of us would get probation for it and that was it. But attempted murder? Does anyone actually believe these kids had intentions of killing? It's a fight in high school, c'mon now.. there's obviously some racist shit goin on. A small suburban town in the south, can't really say I didn't expect it.

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