Jena Six Trip Gives County Residents a Jolt
By Carla Peay
Staff Writer
As the bus from Jena, La. pulled onto a quiet street in Clinton on Friday afternoon, one might have expected the group on board to be tired after the 18 hour ride.
But as the group descended the bus, greeting family members and friends on hand to welcome them home, the travelers seemed energized, and clearly ready to get on with business – bringing that activist spirit back to Prince George’s County.
The Future is Now: Hundreds of High School Students Advocate for the
Jena Six
Students at Friendship Collegiate Academy (F.C.A.) marched through the school’s residential area in unison to oppose the sentencing of Mychal Bell of Jena, La. Led by the school band and police escorts, rally leaders Maya Foster and Tiara Pearson, both seniors, began their advocacy on Sept. 13.
They solicited the support of their principal to allow students to wear black shirts instead of the standard school uniform. They faxed letters to the press for coverage and created flyers and posters inviting the staff at F.C.A. to join them in the movement for change.
At 7:45 am Sept. 20 Maya and Tiara were on the telephone and Internet still looking for news sources to cover the story.
“I first heard about the Jena 6 movement in health class. The details screamed racism and most of the people in the school didn’t know about Mychal Bell. It bothered me when some of my peers said, ‘racism doesn’t exist’ and they didn’t know what a noose was. We can’t ignore the facts. Mychal Bell is my age and I had to do something,” Maya said.
-- Yolonda D. Coleman
A Call to Continued Action
Donate Money,
Call Elected Officials
Pleas for money from various organizations fighting the cause for the Jena 6 are on going. Go to www.naacp.org/contribute/contribute.php or mail donations of any amount to Jena 6 Defense Committee, P. O. Box 2798, Jena, LA 71342. Also, please make phone calls to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and the Louisiana State Attorney General.
Commentary
A Great Show of Peace and Perseverance:
Now What?
By Claudette Perry
Special to the Informer
Sept. 20, Jena, La. - Tens of thousands peacefully poured into Jena, La. yesterday to protest the attempted second-degree murder conviction of Mychal Bell in adult court, and the pending trials of five additional African American high school students.
There were college students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, political action groups, motorcycle clubs, singers, actors, legislators, families and concerned individuals arriving in caravans, answering the call to march. Some came from Alaska, the Virgin Islands and other faraway places.
Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, Sr., and all the usual political action groups and leaders were in Jena, but there was something special about this march. It had a youthful look.
It felt like a renaissance of the civil rights era. Has Jena awakened the civically inactive African Americans who thought they were free? Has this case opened the eyes of the children who believed their elders had secured a future of equal rights with sweat, blood, and in some cases, their lives?
My optimistic answer is “yes,” given the show of unity among an estimated 50,000 marchers and the cooperation among African American leaders of different religious and political ideologies.
The pain of this case motivated new voices in the African American community to become involved in this movement.
Jena Six Rally Oct. 2 at Justice Department
By Joseph Young
WI Staff Writer
Jena, La., Sept. 20 – It was Dec.4, 2006, when Howard University students marched from their Northwest, Washington campus to the U.S. Supreme Court, a couple miles away, to demonstrate their support for diversity in the nation’s public school system.
On that same day, in Jena, La., six Black Jena High School students were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder for a schoolyard beating of a White student.
The attack left Justin Barker unconscious and bleeding with facial injuries, but Barker was treated at a local emergency room for about three hours then went to a party.
Mychal Bell, 17, was the first to go on trial as an adult in June for the December beating and was convicted in four days by an all-White jury. The deadly weapon was his tennis shoes.
Last week, 50 students from Howard boarded a bus at 5 a.m. to make the 18-hour drive to Jena for a rally on Sept 20 to demonstrate their support for the Jena Six.
As the bus load of Howard students rolled along U.S. Highway 165, one of the main routes to Jena, demonstrators were confronted with four Confederate flags and one American flag hung on the fence of a home. If intimidation was the motive for placing the rebel flags in plain sight of the protesters, it failed.
Charter buses and minivans filled the streets and parking spaces surrounding the LaSalle Parish Court House where demonstrations were held.
The town of Jena is the largest of LaSalle Parish. Its population was 2,971 at the 2000 census. The racial makeup of the town was 85.5 percent White, 12.2 percent Black and 2.3 percent other.
Prince George’s County Hears the Call of Jena Six
By Mary Wells
WI Staff Writer
Two bus loads left Reid Temple AME Church last on Sept. 19 at 3 a.m. According to the Rev. Carey James, minister to Children and Youth, there were 10 students and 40 adults.
“Young people took their iPod ear buds out of their ears and responded to the call,” said Carol Hall, 63, a retired government worker.
“They heard the cry of their young brother, Mychal Bell, from the jail cell, waiting to be sentenced. It took something like this gross injustice to the young Black students in Jena, La. to energize young Black people, in college and high school, all over the country.”
James said the purpose of the trip was to let LaSalle Parrish District Attorney Reed Walters know that injustice will not be tolerated. They were also careful to avoid patronizing businesses in the town they perceived as racist.
more
Jena Timeline of Racial Unrest
Compiled by Joseph Young
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Aug. 30, 2006: During an assembly of all males at Jena High School (JHS,) a Black student asked Assistant Principal Gawen Burgess if Black students were permitted to sit under the tree on the traditionally White side of the campus. Burgess responded, “Don’t even go there; you know you can sit wherever you want.”
Aug. 31, 2006: Students arrived at JHS to find three hangman nooses hanging from the tree in the center of the campus. The White students who placed the nooses in the tree were identified by school officials. A school investigation was held and they were removed from the school with a recommendation by Principal Scott Windham for expulsion. A hearing by the expulsion committee ruled against expulsion and instead suspended the three students. The committee’s investigation found there was no racial motivation behind the nooses and ruled the incident a prank.
Sept. 1, 2006: Black students protested at JHS in response to the noose incident, which they saw as racially motivated.
Sept. 5, 2006: Several Black parents and students attended a rally at the L&A Missionary Baptist Church in Jena to discuss the noose incident, which they considered a hate crime and an act of intimidation.
Sept. 6, 2006: Two fights occurred between students at JHS. Tensions prompted Windham to call a student assembly where he, LaSalle Superintendent Roy Breithaupt and LaSalle Parrish District Attorney Reed Walters addressed students. Walters warned the Black students that he could ruin their lives with the stroke of his pen.
Is the Jena Six the Start of a 21st Century Civil Rights Movement?
By Carlton R. Van Lowe
WI Contributing Writer
At the time of the protests in Jena, La. and across the country for six African American students charged with attempted murder for a school yard fist fight, at least two other racially charged incidents made headlines.
One occurred right here in Washington, D.C. where an off duty police officer shot a 14-year-old for allegedly robbing him of a mini bike, and another in West Virginia where a 20-year-old Black woman was held for a week and raped and tortured by six White Americans.
As members of the Black community descended on the Nation’s Capitol on Sept. 20 the date Mychal Bell was initially set for sentencing, these and other racially charged events were fresh in the minds of those who came out to rally behind the Jena 6 and their plight for justice outside the U.S. Capitol.
A large crowd of people, wearing all black, convened on the Capitol as poets, politicians and activists took turns on a platform.
“The students in Jena are being treated the same way as students across the country. It’s good that the media and the people have rallied around this issue, but the issue is one of racial injustice and the so called justice system and we see the affects of that all around the country everyday,” said Naji Majahid, a protester from S.E.
She thought the rally should have been held in front of D.C. Superior Court.
“This isn’t…new,” she added. “I think the people who were shocked and surprised and can’t believe what’s going on– I think their shock and surprise is an indictment against their own complacency and in fact state of denial. We are in a state [of] denial and allow ourselves to think that things have changed, and that things are better when in fact they are the same.”
It’s Personal
Walking the Walk
Nydria B. Humphries
Trinity College Student
I stepped off an empty car at the Smithsonian, only to find out that I should have got off the train three stops back. The march for solidarity wasn't on the mall, but in City Park. The Black station manager warned me that he knew of nothing that was going on at the Smithsonian, but he did see a couple of people wearing black.
"What's going on?" he said. I replied, "The march for the Jena 6," and then shook my head.
So, up the escalators I went, but the grass was the only thing I saw when I arrived on the mall. "Where is everybody?" I asked myself. I looked to the right and saw the U.S. Capitol. Then I looked to the left and saw the Monument. Then I turned right and started walking towards the Capitol. I began to see a speck on the lawn of the place where all laws are made. Then I started to jog, and as I looked to my right a White man was jogging beside me. Then I started to run. I had to pass him.
The March for Solidarity was scheduled to begin at 8 a.m., but it was now 8:30. “Where are they," I asked myself. Then I looked to my left and saw a Black man with his two sons and they were all dressed in black. So, I followed them.
They led me to my brothers and sisters, who were all standing strong, with a common goal. We all were together again in "City Park” with the backdrop of the U.S. Capitol, standing up for our rights.
Enough is Enough!
“It was a great trip. We represented Prince George’s County very well,” said George Mitchell, who is running for the District 4 Congressional seat.
The group left early on Sept. 19, filling two busses with money raised from sponsors. Activists of all ages, from school aged children to retirees, all said they wanted to be a part of an historic event.
“It was a beautiful trip. I think we accomplished a lot. We went there with a purpose, and were part of something historic,” said county activist George Thompson, of Clinton. “Our young people got a chance to see that we can fight injustice.”
Jackie Foster, a Clinton resident and owner of Rita’s Ice, called the case an issue of justice, not race.
“We didn’t go there to support the Jena Six because they are young Black men. It’s about injustice,” she said.
Brothers Bryce and Braxton Carrington attended the rally with their mother Kim.
more
