Protesters pack Louisiana town to rally for accused black teens Quote:
Thousands of demonstrators gathered Thursday in a small Louisiana town to condemn what they contend is a racially motivated prosecution of six African-American teenagers charged with attempted murder following a schoolyard fight.
The 2006 incident in the mostly white town of Jena has garnered international attention and again placed the contentious issue of race at the forefront of America's political landscape.
The protest — initially set to coincide with the sentencing of one of the defendants, Mychal Bell — has drawn busloads of supporters from across the United States, from college students to veterans of the civil rights movement. Organizers said they hoped to draw more than 40,000 people to support the teens, who have become known as the "Jena Six."
Surrounded by two of the six teens and their relatives outside the courthouse, U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton told the crowd the protest was the beginning of the 21st century's civil rights movement, one that would challenge disparities in the justice system.
"In the 20th century, we had to fight for where we sit on the bus; now we've got to fight on how we sit in the courtroom," Sharpton said to rapturous shouts of approval from the vocal crowd.
Rev. Jesse Jackson told the rally that the Jena case echoes throughout the country as African-Americans are denied equal treatment in the judicial system every day.
"There's a Jena everywhere," Jackson said, calling the incident gripping the town "just a biopsy on the larger cancer."
The six were arrested after Justin Barker, 17, a white student, was beaten unconscious on Dec. 4, 2006 after nooses were hung from a tree on the grounds of Jena High School. Barker was knocked unconscious, his face badly swollen and bloodied, though he was able to attend a school function later that night.
The teens were charged a few months after the local prosecutor declined to charge three white high school students who hung the nooses. Five were initially charged with attempted murder; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.
Bell was found guilty on second-degree battery charges June 28 by a six-member, all-white jury. Before the case was overturned by the state 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, his sentencing had been set for Thursday.
The court said Bell, who was 16 at the time of the alleged beating, shouldn't have been tried as an adult.
Bell, unable to afford the $90,000 bond, remains jailed while prosecutors prepare an appeal.
Case 'never has been about race': D.A.
District Attorney Reed Walters, breaking a long public silence, denied Wednesday that racism was involved.
He said he didn't prosecute the students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no Louisiana law under which they could be charged.
"I cannot overemphasize what a villainous act that was. The people that did it should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town," Walters said.
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, Bell, had a prior criminal record.
"This case has been portrayed by the news media as being about race," he said. "And the fact that it takes place in a small southern town lends itself to that portrayal. But it is not and never has been about race. It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions."
On Wednesday, British rock musician David Bowie donated $10,000 to the teens' legal defence fund, the NAACP said.
Meanwhile, Jackson appeared to backtrack Wednesday on being quoted earlier in the week as saying Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was "acting like he's white" for not speaking out more forcefully about the case.
Jackson, who has run several times for the Democratic presidential nomination and endorsed Obama in the current race, said in a statement that he was "taken out of context."
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What a load of Crap! I'm so dam sick and tired of people playing the race card when they feel it will benifit them.
Yeah I know all about the meaning of nooses around trees, but Blacks weren't the only ones who faced that, nor does it justify six people to beat up one guy enough to put him in the hospital, and expect to get away with it.
This whole protest is sick, as it attempts to take away from the actual crimes that were commited, and they blame them being charged as because they were black.....
My God people... grow up and get over it.
You can call me a
Whity-cracker'eatin MicFreckles the Vampire all you dam well want, and you can show me a picture of a burning lephrechaun on a cross, and you're not gonna see me get all my goons to come after you and beat you up.
The moment this Jesse Jackson fool gets his head out of his arse and stops thinking that the whole world is still out to get his precious race, the better we'll all be off.
Sep 20, 2007, 12:57 pm
