Bell – the first of the Jena 6 to be tried – was convicted of second-degree aggravated assault and was set to face sentencing on Sept. 20. Though his charge has been thrown out, Bell still waits in jail, unable to make the outrageous $90,000 bail. Meanwhile, the white students who hung the three nooses on the ‘whites-only tree’ and kicked off the escalation of racial tensions at Jena High were suspended for only three days, for what school administrators call a harmless ‘prank.’

“Nooses are a threat, and can’t be perceived as anything else,” said Jim Toweill, a University of Alabama student who plans on attending the massive civil rights march planned for Thursday. “It's a hate crime, period.”

Schools, churches and civil-rights organizations from as far away as New York will be sending buses down to Jena, while rallies will be held on dozens of college campuses. There is also a call for supporters to wear black on Thursday, as a way to show solidarity with the Jena 6 and their families.

As the date of the rally draws closer the movement has spread beyond the south, to the entire world. The courts have been pressured to backtrack. In an attempt to quell the outrage the courts are reducing charges or, in Bell’s case, throwing out the charges entirely. Five of the Jena six still await trial, and face prison sentences.

Organizers of the Sept. 20 rally – originally planned to coincide with Bell’s sentencing- promises to be a historical event, with around 10,000 expected to come to this small Louisiana town to take a stand against racial injustice.

Jena proves what many already know, that the court system is racially biased. Both the school administration and the courts condoned the racist threats by giving leniency to the white students, while at the same time are trying to lock young Black students behind bars for 10 to 20 years. This is unacceptable, and because of the enormous outcry against the arrests and the outpouring of support and mobilizations for the Black students, the whole world now has its eyes on Jena.

#JenaLA #News #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Jena6 #nooses

Outraged people are raising their voices, marching in the streets and rallying on campuses across the country to support the Jena Six. Jena is a small town, four hours northwest of New Orleans, Louisiana. The Jena Six are African-American high school students who refuse to be second-class citizens. The Jena Six are standing up for their rights and fighting back against racism in their community. These young men refuse to be insulted, pushed around and harassed. They simply want equality with the whites in their school and community. The Jena Six are now symbolic of the righteousness of rebellion against racist national oppression.

A statement from Free the Jena 6 explains: “Last fall, when two Black high school students sat under the ‘white’ tree on their campus, white students responded by hanging nooses from the tree. When Black students protested the light punishment for the students who hung the nooses, District Attorney Reed Walters came to the school and told the students he could ‘take their lives away with a stroke of his pen.’”

Racial tension continued to mount in Jena, and the District Attorney did nothing in response to several egregious cases of violence and threats against black students. But when a white student – who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses – taunted a black student, and allegedly called several black students n_____ , was beaten up by Black students, six Black students were charged with second-degree attempted murder. Last month, the first young man to be tried, Mychal Bell, was convicted. He faces up to 22 years in prison for a school fight.

A Victory Is Won, the Fight Is Still On!

Thanks to the organizers – the NAACP and the families of the Jena Six – a broad and powerful protest movement of Black people and their allies arose across the U.S. This brought forward a tremendous victory! The growing movement forced the Louisiana criminal justice system to retreat. An appellate judge of the Third Circuit Court threw out the conviction (which was handed down by an all-white jury) against Mychal Bell, saying he should not have been tried as an adult.

The fight is still on, however, because District Attorney Reed Walters promises to pursue cases against the Six. On Sept. 20, organizers promise to have thousands from across the South marching through Jena. The racist railroading of these youth must be stopped.

A Fight for Freedom

The struggle of the Jena Six comes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the criminal neglect of the Bush administration, which caused the deaths of thousands of working-class people, mostly African-Americans. For Black people, these trials in Louisiana are salt in a wound. The fight of the Jena Six is the fight of the Black nation for freedom. It exposes the everyday racism of the American education system. It shines the light on the racist criminalization of young Black men. It hammers away at the shackles of national oppression faced by all Black people no matter what their class or position. The struggle of these six Black sons and brothers is being taken to a higher and higher level the longer the trials continue.

While the Bush administration loses its criminal war against the people of Iraq, the battle against racist national oppression at home must advance. The Iraqi people are committed to struggle until they regain their independence. So too the Black struggle for freedom takes a long view and links up with other struggles as it seeks to end Wall Street’s domination and control. To this end, the Black liberation movement has natural allies in the Chicano national movement of the Southwest, in the movements of other oppressed nationalities – Mexican, Puerto Rican, Arab-American, Asian American, Native-American, etc., and in the movement of the multi-national working class.

The struggle of the Jena Six shows there is growing potential to shake this system and force change. The anti-war movement is large and likely to act more militantly as the U.S. occupation continues. The May 1 mega-marches of the immigrants rights movement startled the whole world and turned back sharp attacks. As the struggle for full equality continues to build, the sight of millions marching through cities and towns has other oppressed and exploited people thinking about acting up. It appears an economic downturn is arriving. It will sharpen these struggles. The small class of rich U.S. billionaires and millionaires who control the politicians and the government will become more repressive. All workers have an interest in ending their own exploitation, which means supporting equality and liberation. The capitalist system, the system of oppression we live under, deserves to be overthrown.

Outraged people are raising their voices, marching in the streets and rallying on campuses across the country to support the Jena Six. Jena is a small town, four hours northwest of New Orleans, Louisiana. The Jena Six are African-American high school students who refuse to be second-class citizens. The Jena Six are standing up for their rights and fighting back against racism in their community. These young men refuse to be insulted, pushed around and harassed. They simply want equality with the whites in their school and community. The Jena Six are now symbolic of the righteousness of rebellion against racist national oppression.

A statement from Free the Jena 6 explains: “Last fall, when two Black high school students sat under the ‘white’ tree on their campus, white students responded by hanging nooses from the tree. When Black students protested the light punishment for the students who hung the nooses, District Attorney Reed Walters came to the school and told the students he could ‘take their lives away with a stroke of his pen.’”

Racial tension continued to mount in Jena, and the District Attorney did nothing in response to several egregious cases of violence and threats against black students. But when a white student – who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses – taunted a black student, and allegedly called several black students n_____ , was beaten up by Black students, six Black students were charged with second-degree attempted murder. Last month, the first young man to be tried, Mychal Bell, was convicted. He faces up to 22 years in prison for a school fight.

A Victory Is Won, the Fight Is Still On!

Thanks to the organizers – the NAACP and the families of the Jena Six – a broad and powerful protest movement of Black people and their allies arose across the U.S. This brought forward a tremendous victory! The growing movement forced the Louisiana criminal justice system to retreat. An appellate judge of the Third Circuit Court threw out the conviction (which was handed down by an all-white jury) against Mychal Bell, saying he should not have been tried as an adult.

The fight is still on, however, because District Attorney Reed Walters promises to pursue cases against the Six. On Sept. 20, organizers promise to have thousands from across the South marching through Jena. The racist railroading of these youth must be stopped.

A Fight for Freedom

The struggle of the Jena Six comes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the criminal neglect of the Bush administration, which caused the deaths of thousands of working-class people, mostly African-Americans. For Black people, these trials in Louisiana are salt in a wound. The fight of the Jena Six is the fight of the Black nation for freedom. It exposes the everyday racism of the American education system. It shines the light on the racist criminalization of young Black men. It hammers away at the shackles of national oppression faced by all Black people no matter what their class or position. The struggle of these six Black sons and brothers is being taken to a higher and higher level the longer the trials continue.

While the Bush administration loses its criminal war against the people of Iraq, the battle against racist national oppression at home must advance. The Iraqi people are committed to struggle until they regain their independence. So too the Black struggle for freedom takes a long view and links up with other struggles as it seeks to end Wall Street’s domination and control. To this end, the Black liberation movement has natural allies in the Chicano national movement of the Southwest, in the movements of other oppressed nationalities – Mexican, Puerto Rican, Arab-American, Asian American, Native-American, etc., and in the movement of the multi-national working class.

The struggle of the Jena Six shows there is growing potential to shake this system and force change. The anti-war movement is large and likely to act more militantly as the U.S. occupation continues. The May 1 mega-marches of the immigrants rights movement startled the whole world and turned back sharp attacks. As the struggle for full equality continues to build, the sight of millions marching through cities and towns has other oppressed and exploited people thinking about acting up. It appears an economic downturn is arriving. It will sharpen these struggles. The small class of rich U.S. billionaires and millionaires who control the politicians and the government will become more repressive. All workers have an interest in ending their own exploitation, which means supporting equality and liberation. The capitalist system, the system of oppression we live under, deserves to be overthrown.

Justice For the Jena Six!

Statement by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization: www.frso.org

For news and views from the people’s struggle: www.fightbacknews.org!

Statement by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization: www.frso.org

For news and views from the people’s struggle: www.fightbacknews.org

#UnitedStates #Editorial #NAACP #Editorials #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Jena6 #nooses

Attorney Louis Scott presented an outline of the case of the Jena 6 (See “Justice for the Jena 6!”, Fight Back! September 2007), emphasizing the breakdowns of the criminal justice system in the railroading of Mychal Bell. Scott pointed out that no white student was ever punished for hanging the nooses. No police report of the fight has been seen. Charges against the Jena 6 were brought on the basis of written statements – many of which contradicted one another. Bell was tried as an adult through a questionable legal maneuver of District Attorney Reed Walters. An all-white jury convicted Bell – and all members said they knew the District Attorney on a personal level. At least one juror said he knew he could not be fair, but still served on the jury.

It was soon after Mychal Bell’s conviction that local residents in Jena, Louisiana asked Louis Scott, a civil rights lawyer in nearby Monroe, to take over the defense. Mychal Bell was briefly released from jail thanks to Scott’s efforts and the pressure of mass mobilizations – including the tens of thousands who marched on Jena and demonstrated around the country on Sep. 20 and the student walkouts on campuses across the country on Oct. 1. Today, however, Bell is back in jail on trumped-up charges, thanks to the work of the district attorney, who, despite the blatant racism and injustices in the conviction of Bell, having been exposed for all to see, refuses to back off. As Reverend Barber said on this point, “We have a system from the White House to the court house that does not know how to repent.”

Louis Scott explained the political significance of the case, “This case struck a nerve. But we have to ask why. On one level, it’s your parents’ classic civil rights case: ‘Do African-Americans have the same right to stand under the same tree as whites?’ In that sense it’s a 1957 civil rights case.”

“But the tree is symbolic of more than just a tree,” Scott continued. “The tree is symbolic of the Constitution of the United States. It asks the question: do we, African American people, have the same rights as other Americans under the Constitution and the criminal justice system? Do we have equal rights and equal justice? It’s as simple as that.”

After the presentations by Scott and Barber, several students and parents took the floor to comment and ask questions. Some parents explained how their children were currently locked up in prison due to blatant racism in the North Carolina criminal justice system, and asked members in attendance to support their cases and help build pressure to free them. Several students spoke of the urgent need to organize and resist the assaults on African American civil rights.

Denaro Allen, a law student at North Carolina Central University, said, “This makes my blood boil. This generation needs to wake up. A lot of times we’re afraid to talk about it. I’m not afraid anymore. I encourage you to wake up.”

Allen continued, “This is not an isolated incident, by any means. They have killed millions of our people, Black people, African American people – we’ve been fighting since the day we got here! It’s a testament to the will and strength of our people that we’re still here to speak out.”

Mychal Bell’s next court date is Nov. 7. In the meantime, the movement to free Bell and the Jena 6 continues to grow. All across the country, African American students and youth and their allies are organizing forums, teach-ins, sit-ins and street protests to expose the racist U.S. criminal justice system and defend the Six.

#DurhamNC #StudentMovement #News #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Jena6 #LouisScott #WilliamBarber

Tuscaloosa, AL – Across the country, students held rallies in solidarity with the Jena 6. At the University of Alabama, over 100 students, faculty and staff gathered on the library steps, Sept. 20, the day after the massive rally Jena, Louisiana, demanding justice. The protest, organized by the Social Work Association for Cultural Awareness, the University of Alabama chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and the NAACP. The NAACP chartered a bus of students to attended the rally in Jena, which is being reported as the largest civil rights march in years, with crowd estimates around 20,000.

Only a few blocks from the Foster Auditorium, where Governor Wallace blocked the entrance of two African-American students to the university in 1963, University of Alabama students and teachers spoke passionately about how the Jena incident reflects the criminalization of young Black men, the corrupt and racist criminal justice system and the need for whites to back the continuing struggle against discrimination.

“I believe that people who commit crimes against others should be punished – but the weight of their punishment should not depend on the color of their skin,” said University of Alabama alum Horus Muhammad, “Just because I am an African-American and you are a caucasian does not mean I should go to prison and you get a slap on the wrist if we both commit the same crime.”

Aftermath of Jena

On the day of the march, the majority of white residents of Jena left town, closing businesses and shops. During the protest in Jena, some white teenagers attached nooses to their truck; they were stopped and arrested. In the days following, nooses were hung at a high school in North Carolina . The Jena rally is being hailed as an impressive show of Black unity and strength.

In a related development, on Sept. 21, a judge denied a request to release Mychal Bell, one of the Jena 6 who has been in jail since he was arrested in 2006.

#TuscaloosaAL #News #OppressedNationalities #SDS #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Jena6