Tiny Jena braces for a day of protest
By CINDY GEORGE
Houston Chronicle, Sept. 20
JENA, La. — For all intents and purposes, this small Louisiana town is closed today. So too are its schools, businesses, and courthouse clerk's office. A downtown car dealership has moved its inventory elsewhere. To many of the 3000 who live here, there's no use in trying to conduct normal affairs on an all-but-normal day.
Upward of 20,000 people are expected in the town today, and they're not coming to sample its rural, central Louisiana charms. In an event reminiscent of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, people across the nation are boarding buses and traveling through the night to protest what they see as an egregious example of racial injustice. Six black teens — known nationally now as the Jena 6 — are facing serious criminal charges in the schoolyard beating last December of a white classmate, following an incident that occurred in the shade of a large tree at Jena High School, a spot traditionally reserved for whites.
A black student decided to sit under the tree, and days later, three nooses were found hanging from its ample branches. Angered not only that school officials deemed the nooses a prank, protesters say officials also initially charged the black students with attempted murder for an offense that historically earned only a three-day suspension.
The case gained national attention through black radio, newspapers, e-mail and Internet sites, and intensified this summer after Mychal Bell, 17, a star football player at Jena High, was convicted by an all-white jury. The Louisiana Supreme Court overturned that verdict last week. The march was to coincide with Bell's sentencing.
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A taste of the national spotlight hit Wednesday morning, as television cameras and reporters descended on the LaSalle Parish courthouse in downtown Jena. Sharpton arrived around noon to meet with Bell, then held a news conference. Barker appeared in the afternoon before reporters with LaSalle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters, who is white.
For Jena residents, it is surreal to watch what's happening around the corner on national television. Darlea Johnson, 48, who is white, said she resents media reports that paint her hometown as a place prejudiced against blacks. "It's a good place. When they're calling Jena racist, they're calling me that — and that's not fair," Johnson said.
Reporters were in town all week to document a blip in the town's history that may turn Jena itself into a symbol of injustice, akin to Money, Miss., in the 1950s and Selma, Ala., in the '60s.
Residents are overwhelmed. Fast-food restaurants and other businesses that remained open in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina will be closed. But it might not matter much. One of the strategies of the protest was to avoid rewarding Jena in any way, which means not buying food, gas or lodging there.
"I think people are just worried about a lot of damage being done and that Jena is being given a black eye, and it really doesn't deserve it," said Guy Campbell, 59, a white Jena native and retired social worker. "Hopefully the bad whites will stay home and the bad blacks will stay home and the demonstration will be what it's supposed to be."
People interviewed, of both races, agreed that school fights causing a range of injuries are not usually punished as serious crimes. And no one has condoned Barker's beating. Blacks interviewed said the charges were brought because the victim was white and the alleged assailants were black. Whites would not make such pronouncements.
"The charges were overdone for a simple schoolyard fight," said Louis McCoy, an oil field roustabout and cousin to accused attacker Theodore Shaw. But McCoy, who is black, said some question whether the Jena 6 should be held up as emblems of persecution, given that at least Bell, Bailey, Shaw and Jones have previous juvenile criminal histories. Last April, Bell was placed on probation in juvenile court for an unrelated simple battery charge. "A lot of the black people in Jena did not get behind them because of the things they have done before this happened," McCoy, 47, said of the six.
The nooses, symbols of racial intimidation, were dismissed as indiscretions and not pursued as hate crimes. Court records show that skirmishes between whites and blacks prior to the December 2006 fight were resolved by school suspensions or simple battery charges. "This is about unequal justice. This is about the white students that got away with crimes and weren't prosecuted," said Bell's father, Marcus Jones, 35. "In the court system, blacks are being treated worse than white people doing the same crime."
Calls to Walters, the prosecutor, and to Barker's home were not returned.
At his July trial, Bell faced an all-white jury because blacks called to jury duty did not show up, Bell's new lawyers said in court filings. The legal team is seeking a new trial because "an insufficient effort was made to obtain the attendance of potential jurors who did not appear."
Jena, the parish seat, is a town of contrasts between black and white. It sits at the center of long, winding rural roads. Its downtown has a village feel, with the parish courthouse, Jena Town Hall, the police station, shops, banks and a cluster of gas stations and fast-food restaurants. Predominantly white areas around Jena High and near downtown run the gamut from brick-ranch homes with sprawling lawns to stuffy trailer parks on asphalt-paved streets. Mostly white North Jena is known as "Snob Hill." The black areas are a haphazard collection of modest houses and mobile homes just outside the city limits along gravel roads and dirt alleys. The 350 blacks in Jena have little political power.
Around town, black and white youth mingled together in yards and rode together in cars. Beau Jones, 16, a white football player who said he is Bell's friend, said there is no racism at Jena High. "I want the best for him," Jones said. "He's done way too much time already."
Aaron Dozier, a 21-year-old black college student, said most of his friends at Jena High were white. He said the racial tensions are real even if others won't admit it. "When you get punished, you need to get punished the right way, not try to ruin somebody's life because of their race," Dozier said.
