In September 2007 more than 40,000 demonstrators descended on the small town of Jena, La. to protest unequal justice for the Jena Six, a case in which charges were brought against six black teens following a series of racially charged incidents sparked by the hanging of nooses in a public schoolyard. Facing South followed the case closely as it thrust a small central Louisiana town into the national spotlight and drew the eyes of the country to the lines of racial inequality still present in the modern-day South.
The nooses were hung by white students after black students sat under a tree the white students apparently considered their own. The students who hung the nooses faced only a brief suspension from school and no criminal charges for their actions, sparking anger among the town's black residents. The racial tension led to a number of confrontations and fights between whites and blacks, with blacks consistently facing harsher punishment for their actions. In the case of the Jena Six, six black youths, at the time all students at Jena High school, were charged in December 2006 with beating a white schoolmate, Justin Barker.
The black youths initially faced felony charges of attempted murder with potential fines of more than $90,000 and potential sentences as high as 20 years.
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The severity of the charges drew widespread international criticism and protest. A judge went on to reduce the charges against Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw to aggravated second-degree battery. Mychal Bell, the only one of the Jena Six to go to trial, pleaded guilty to second-degree battery as a juvenile in December 2007 and has since completed his period of 18-months in jail.
Last Friday the case -- which captured the imagination of a whole generation of black youth -- came to a final resolution. The five remaining Jena Six defendants -- Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Theodore Shaw -- pleaded no contest to simple battery and agreed to fines and seven days of probation.
Civil rights activists have pointed out that the case of the Jena Six shone a light on the miscarriages of justice that happen to black male youth across the country. As David Utter of the Southern Poverty Law Center said last Friday: "These things don't just happen in Louisiana."
ColorOfChange.org, the online civil rights group that raised more than $275,000 for legal defense for the Jena Six, applauded the plea bargain. In a press statement on Friday the group said:
[T]he plea deal marked an acknowledgement by officials that the Louisiana justice system initially treated the then-teenage boys too harshly, privileging white students' accounts of a schoolyard fight over those of black students in the largely segregated town of Jena.
"Today's plea deal shows that the original charges in the case were unfair and vastly overblown," said James Rucker, ColorOfChange.org's executive director. "The story of the Jena 6 was an extreme example of what can happen when a justice system biased against black boys operates unchecked. But it's also an example of what can happen when hundreds of thousands of people across the country stand up to challenge unequal justice."
All in all, most observers agree it was a quiet end for the young men who, in 2007, were at the center of one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in a generation and the subject of rallying cries such as "Free the Jena Six." All the young men are now moving on with their lives, their attorneys say. Purvis is attending Ranger Junior College in Ranger, Texas; Bailey plans to enroll in Grambling State University in the fall; Shaw is attending Delta State Community College in Monroe; Jones is attending Tyler Junior College in Texas; Beard is enrolled in Canterbury, a private prep school in Connecticut; and Bell is enrolled in a historically black college in Louisiana.
Whites do not see this the same way at all! Blacks have gotten away with stomping a white student in a gym. They hit him from behind in the head as he was going out the door. The noose boogey man is a set up the blacks used to get away with this crime. We all knew they would walk. If white people did the same thing to a black person they would be in jail the rest of their life. Their lives would be destroyed just as the victim Justin Barker's life has been ruined. Black power is just a Black KKK!
July 1, 2009 7:42 AM | Reply
Get the facts Josie. Many of us did and this was clearly a racially motivated event. White students threatened these boys with a shotgun, nothing happened. One boy hits another with a sneaker and is accused of attempted murder?! Get real lady. It took a while but justice was nearly served.
July 2, 2009 11:11 AM | Reply
White people have done the same things for years and years and have gotten away with it or have you forgotten . There is no excuse for racism coming from a black person or a white person no matter what it is all wrong. Hanging a noose from a tree is not a prank, it is not a joke, it is a serious issue because it goes to how those children who did it are being raised. If the situation were reversed and the black students had done that they would have gotten more than a suspension and you know it and eveyone else knows it. According to the law if you know the law that is on the lines of a hate crime and it is a threat not a prank. I am in no way condonning the beating of this student, but what do you expect when the Jena 6 felt they had no other way to go for justice.
October 18, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply
WHITE PEOPLE THINK JUST BECAUSE THEY DID THAT IN THE SLAVERY YEARS THAT THEY CAN DO THAT NOW!!!! NOT IN THE 21 CENTURY..WE HAVE GOTTEN TIRED OF ALL THE RACIAL COMMENT AND ALL THE BEATEN. WE ALL ARE NOW STANDING UP FOR OURSELF...JENA 6 OPEN ALOT OF EYES...THANK YOU
November 2, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply
SupportedJ6: I kept up with it as well, being from Jena. I was also responsible for scanning a copy of the eye witness statements for this case. All of them...straight from the courthouse. They are located at the Evangelical Outpost. Google "Jena 6 Documents". Your statement about white students threatening these boys with a gun is very misleading. One 18-year old white student pulled a gun on three black students (one being a Jena 6) when they approached him "getting ready to fight". My quote is directly from the eye witness statement Robert Bailey, a Jena 6, filled out describing the incident. So this white guy pulled a gun because he was being "ganged up on" three to one. So please don't mislead people on that. Your "sneaker" comment is very misleading as well. The victim, Justin Barker, was sucker punched, knocked unconscious by the fall, and 6-9 black students proceeded to kick him repeatedly while he was just laying there. Big difference than "being hit by a sneaker". I think attempted murder was too much for this as well, but let's leave the case at what it is...not skewing the facts to make it sound worse. Few people were properly informed of this case, including yourself. If you really want to know the truth and don't trust the documents online I've directed you to, go to the Lasalle Parish courthouse and read the eye witness statements yourself. It's sad how no major news outlet mentioned that these same black students had threatened 3 or 4 other male white students that day before the beating. One kid told the teacher the next period that he had to use the restroom and snook out of the school because he was scared. If you're REALLY interested in the case, read about several of the Jena 6's misadventures SINCE this case, including several charges of assault, theft, etc. Two seemed to have done well, though (Theo Shaw, Jesse Ray Beard).
November 7, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply