Jena 6

Hopefully all of you know the story. For those who don't, read up. For those who do, read up. We must be equipped to combat ignorance and injustice. Education is the first step, but it is not enough.

Situation:

Jena, Louisiana, Fall 2006 - "the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."¹
...
The noose-hanging incident and the DA's visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were arrested for the theft of the gun.²

That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger." After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.³

Six Black Jena High students, Robert Bailey (17), Theo Shaw (17), Carwin Jones (18), Bryant Purvis (17), Mychal Bell (16) and an unidentified minor, were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder.

1. "Injustice in Jena as Nooses Hang From the ‘White Tree,'" truthout, July 3, 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070307B.shtml

2. "Racial demons rear heads," Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/yvh7t5

3. See reference #1."

Solution:

Contact
1) Louisiana state governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco

Write	Fax	E-mail
Office of the Governor Attn: Constituent Services P.O. Box 94004 Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004	Facsimile: 225-342-7099	E-mail the Governor

Call

866-366-1121 225-342-0991 225-342-7015

2) Louisiana state attorney general Charles C. Foti Jr. - 225-326-6705.

DEMONSTRATE OUTSIDE THEIR OFFICES, CALL, WRITE LETTERS, MAKE NOISE, BE LOUD, BE PROUD.