Michael Torres of New Orleans stands with fellow demonstrators as they march in Jena, La., today to protest what they say is an injustice against six black teenagers, known as the Jena 6, charged with attempted murder of a white student. Protesters say the charges are a gross overreaction to a schoolyard fight in a school where racial tensions were running high; the authorities say the victim was blindsided with no chance to defend himself. (Sean Gardner/Reuters)
By Maria Newman
Richard G. Jones, a reporter for The New York Times, is in Jena, La., today, where protesters have converged in support of the six black youths arrested for beating a white classmate.
Their numbers are overwhelming the little town, he reports. There are crowds gathered peacefully at the city’s courthouse, at a nearby park, and at the high school that was at the center of the incident whose aftermath drew them here.
They came from far and near: Many of them rode buses all day and all night to get to this town where there was something called “the white tree.'’
Fanon Brown, 16, is one of them: He told Mr. Jones that he left Philadelphia at 3 a.m. Wednesday and got to Jena 27 hours later. He is here, he says, not just for the six black boys who were arrested for beating a white classmate after a series of incidents in the town, but for the larger things he said the case represents about race and justice in America:
I can’t believe that after all these years we still have deformities in our justice system. We have to free the Jena Six but we’ve got to go home and take care of this racism thing.
Before this week, the major national news outlets had barely mentioned the chain of events in Jena that began more than a year ago, but word circulated through the Internet, in the e-mail and text messages that young people use these days to relay news to one another. Now, the story is on the national agenda, and even President Bush discussed it today with reporters:
“Events in Louisiana have saddened me,'’ he said at a press conference at the White House. “I understand the emotions. The Justice Department and the F.B.I. are monitoring the situation down there and all of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice.'’
This is what the protesters in Jena today have been saying about the troubles here, which began when a black student asked the school’s assistant prinicipal whether he could sit under a tree in the center of Jena High School that was known as a whites-only gathering place, and was told he could. The next morning, there were two nooses found hanging from the tree.
Diana Jones traveled from Atlanta with her 17-year-old daughter April and her husband, Derrick. “Nobody should have to ask if they can sit under this tree,'’ Mrs. Jones told The Times. “I’m surprised to hear that this is still happening in 2007.'’
Another surprise to April and to young people like her, she said, were the polar opposite reactions that different people in Jena seemed to have to each event leading up to the arrests of the six boys.
“I just feel like every time the white people did something, they dropped it, and every time the black people did something, they blew it out of proportion,'’ she told Mr. Jones of The Times.
Two students from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette said they felt it was their turn to march for civil rights.
“This is the first time something like this has happened for our generation,'’ said Eric Depradine, 24, who is a senior. “You always heard about it from history books and relatives. This is the chance to experience it for ourselves.'’
His schoolmate, Charley Caldwell Jr., 22, who is a sophomore, said he was amazed by details of the case.
“When I first heard about it, I thought it was obscene, so I felt I had to come,'’ he said.
“We’re here to free the Jena Six,'’ he continued, using the sobriquet people have emblazoned on T-shirts and signs on display today.
Latese Brown, 40, a social worker from Alexandria, La., about 40 miles from here, said: “I felt I needed to be here to support these kids. It’s about time we all stood together for something.'’
She said she was stunned at remarks on Wednesday by the district attorney, Reed Walters, who said he did not prosecute the students accused of hanging the nooses in the tree because he could find no Louisiana law they could be charged under.
“I cannot overemphasize what a villainous act that was,'’ he said about the nooses. “The people that did it should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town.'’
As for the beatings, he said, four of the defendants were old enough to be considered adults under Louisiana law, and that one of the juveniles who were charged as adults, Mychal Bell, had a prior criminal record.
“It is not and never has been about race,” Mr. Walters said. “It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions.”
The Town Talk, an area newspaper, has more on Mr. Walters’s press conference here.
Ms. Brown expressed incredulity at Mr. Walters’s line of thinking: “If you can figure out how to make a school yard fight into an attempted murder charge, I’m sure you can figure out how to make stringing nooses into a hate crime.'’
[ Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this post rendered the district attorney’s name incorrectly. ]
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