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WAKE UP CALL: A Troubling Song of the South |
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Jena is a small rural town of 3000, which serves as the county seat for LaSalle Parish, La.
Outside of Jena High School, a majestic shade tree offers students an outdoor refuge from the sweltering heat that often hangs over this small bayou town. In September of 2006, that shade tree became more than just nature’s shelter from the sun.
You see, the tree was unofficially dubbed the “White Tree,” an arboreal haven reserved for white students only. It was always understood that black students had their places to congregate, and the White Tree was certainly not one of them.
On a fateful day last September, a black student approached school administrators for permission to sit under the White Tree. The administrators made it clear that the black students could sit anywhere they pleased. Unfortunately, some of the white students at Jena High did not share the equal access philosophy of the school administration. The day after black students availed themselves of the White Tree’s cooling comfort, the students were greeted with three nooses, adorned in the school’s colors and hanging from the branches of the tree. The dangling reminders of Southern lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan predicated a series of events that have been somehow ignored by the mainstream news media, and have divided the town of Jena into racial factions.
The three white students responsible for hanging the nooses were each given a three-day suspension and a stern talking to. Though the school principal recommended expulsion, the super-intendent of schools thought that the idea of expulsion was too harsh for an adolescent “prank.” The well-founded outrage of the black students was just beginning as the repercussions of this hate crime lit the fuse to a racial tinderbox in Jena.
In response to the noose hanging incident and the light punishments issued to the perpetrators, the black Jena High School students staged a protest under the infamous tree. Jena law enforcement and District Attorney J. Reed Walters held an assembly in the wake of the protest. In a statement reminiscent of Reconstruction-era jurisprudence, Walters made it clear that if the black students did not stop their demonstrative indignation at this “innocent prank…I can be your best friend or worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of a pen.” As these students would soon find out, this was no idle threat.
In December of 2006, a black student was severely beaten when he attempted to attend a white party on a Friday night. The following day, a white graduate of Jena High School confronted another group of young black men with a shotgun at a local convenience store. The would-be victims wrestled the gun away from the man, and were amazingly arrested for assault. The white man who brought the gun to the store had no charges filed against him.
The culmination of this weekend of racial tension climaxed on Monday, Dec. 4, 2006. A white student who had been vocally supportive of the noose-hangers and who had also been calling African-American students the “n-word” was confronted and beaten by some black students. The white victim was taken to the hospital, treated and released. Even though the white student had recovered enough to attend a social function that same evening, Jena law enforcement found that this attack merited aggressive legal action. Six black students were arrested and charged with attempted murder for the beating. They would become known as the Jena Six.
One of the Jena Six, 17-year-old Mychal Bell, was convicted earlier this month of the lesser charges of aggravated battery and conspiracy. With a white judge presiding, an all-white jury deliberating, and a racially insensitive district attorney prosecuting, a miscarriage of justice seemed inevitable. The public defender of questionable competence who represented Bell never challenged the racial make-up of the jury and added insult to injustice by putting Bell’s parents on the witness list, precluding them from being in the courtroom during the trial, though he never called them to testify. In addition, the judge issued a gag order that eliminated Bell’s parents’ ability to speak with the press about the case.
In what is best described as a legal stretch of the facts, the aggravated battery charge was supported by the DA’s assertion that Bell’s tennis shoes constituted a deadly weapon since they were used to kick the victim. With a guilty conviction hovering, Bell is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31. He faces up to 22 years in prison.
The five remaining members of the Jena Six feature high school athletes and family-centered young men.
They have bail amounts ranging from $70,000 to $138,000. Thus far, only some of the six have managed to post bail since being arrested this past December.
The atrocity of the Jena Six and the circumstances that led to their incarceration should be at the forefront of public discourse. To those who believe racism and Jim Crow practices are a figment of the collective black imagination, the events in Jena serve as proof of the reality of racism in America. These are the elements of American culture that our government and mainstream media would prefer remain hidden, or at least shaded by a tree in Louisiana.
For more information, contact The Jena Six Defense Committee, PO Box 2798, Jena, La. 71342 or
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Richard McCulloch is the vice president of Operations and Director of Student Services at The School of Health Careers in Lauderdale Lakes. E-mail:
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