Battling Modern Day Jim Crow: the "Jena Six"

[marmar]

from Color of Change, via AlterNet:


Battling Modern Day Jim Crow: the "Jena Six"

By James Rucker, Color of Change. Posted August 8, 2007.



You can help six youth in Louisiana who have been targeted by racial discrimination that could put them behind bars for decades.


Last Tuesday, more than 300 people from across the country descended on the small town of Jena, Louisiana to protest the racially tinged prosecution of the "Jena Six" -- six black students who are facing attempted murder charges for their alleged roles in a schoolyard fight. The has already been convicted and faces up to 22 years in prison.

The marchers rallied at the Jena courthouse and delivered more than 43,000 signatures collected by ColorOfChange.org demanding that District Attorney Reed Walters drop the charges against the six students.

The story of the Jena 6 reads like one from the Jim Crow era—where powerful whites use brazenly oppressive and discriminatory action to keep black people "in their place"—but it's happening today.

The DA and other officials in Jena thought that their actions would go unchallenged. Indeed, until last week the story has received only a trickle of mainstream press, and the most prominent stories have been marred by serious distortions or ommissions.

What town officials didn't count on was the surge of online activism and reports from online and alternative media outlets such as Left Turn, truthout, Democracy Now, and BlackAmericaWeb, and creative pieces like this pilot episode of Radar (an internet news broadcast from GNN.tv focused on underreported stories and uncovered angles) that have shined a light on the injustice taking place in Jena.

Ever since December, families of the Jena 6 have been fighting to overcome the Jim Crow "justice" being applied to their sons. They have protested, organized, and asked for outside help to show the town's white power structure that they will not sit idly by as their loved ones are railroaded into a life behind bars. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/58989/

[Karenina]

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