Today, many students around campus are wearing black in support of “Jena 6,” a reference to a group of six African-American teenagers in Jena, La. The teens were charged with second-degree murder after assaulting a white teenager on Dec. 4, despite the teen being in the hospital for less than two hours and going to a school function later that night.
Noted civil rights activists and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People claim the arrests were racially charged.
Rallies throughout the country were first planned as a display of support for Mychal Bell, whose sentencing was originally scheduled for today before being overturned. The appeals court ruled Bell should not have been tried as an adult for aggravated battery according to state laws.
“The defendant was not tried on an offense which could have subjected him to the jurisdiction of the criminal court,” the three-paragraph ruling said.
Despite the victory for Bell, the remaining teenagers in the Jena 6 have yet to go to trial. The controversy is still making national headlines and the impact of the events that have transpired over the last year are still being felt.
“It impacts everyone. It’s like we’re living in the past,” Dorian Babino, president of the Commerce NAACP chapter, said. “It hurts to think about all of the progressive strides that Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and the other civil rights activists made to earn the equality we already deserved – and now to read about these heinous and blatant acts of racism going on in our neighbor state is ridiculous.”
The assault occurred after months of racial tension at Jena High School. White and black students rarely sat together; black students traditionally sat on bleachers near the auditorium, and white students sat under a large shade tree, called the “white tree,” in the center of the school courtyard. During an Aug. 31, 2006, school assembly, a black male freshman asked permission from the principal to sit in the shade of the “white tree,” and the principal told the students they could “sit wherever they wanted.”
The following morning, three nooses were discovered hanging from the tree.
Anthony Jackson, one of two black teachers at the high school, recalled, “I jokingly said to another teacher, ‘One’s for you, one’s for me. Who’s the other one for?'”
“It’s a shame the students had to ask for ‘permission’ to sit under a tree, and then to come to school and see those nooses the next day is unacceptable,” Babino said.
Jena’s principal recommended expulsion for the students guilty of the act, but the board of education overturned the ruling, and the punishment was reduced to three days of in-school suspension. The board superintendent said he thought it was a prank.
“I challenge him to take a walk in my shoes. Then maybe he’d take the prank more seriously,” Babino said.
Civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, along with radio personalities Rickey Smiley and Michael Baisden have led the charge towards equality. Babino said the Commerce’s NAACP chapter supports all of the efforts being made.
“These kids are in high school. Some of them are athletes. They’re prospects of going to college and having successful lives are being threatened because they said ‘enough is enough,'” Babino said. “I don’t condone fighting, and according to the parents of these teenagers, they didn’t either, but when you try to peacefully stand up for yourself and it doesn’t work, you feel like you have no other choice.”
Outcries of racism aren’t just based off the convictions of the Jena 6.
“People don’t realize that at an assembly after the Black students held a protest under the ‘white tree,’ the LaSalle Parish District Attorney looked at the black students and told them he could ‘end their lives with the stroke of a pen,'” Babino said.
Those comments are still being disputed by school board members.
Nonetheless, the controversy has sparked a sense of unity in African-American communities throughout the country.
“We’re not only supporting the Jena 6, we’re supporting equality, period,” Jamelia Smith, vice-president of the Commerce NAACP, said.
Darnisha Reed, who currently serves as the Commerce NAACP adviser, realizes that the Jena 6 is conformation that there is still work to be done.
“This confirms the core essence of what Martin Luther King, Jr., and the like, stood for and promoted is still very much alive. It hasn’t ceased,” she said. “This is a direct call-to-action to anyone who supports equality and justice for all. We have to pick up where the leaders of the past left off and ensure that their work wasn’t in vain.”
Students and leaders at A&M-C will meet on the East Circle at 12:15 p.m. to pray and support the Jena 6. Everyone is invited to participate.