Last December, six black students at Jena High School were arrested
after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a
concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were charged
with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy. They face up to 100
years in prison without parole. The Jena Six, as they have come to be
known, range in age from 15 to 17 years old.
Just over a week ago, an all-white jury took less than two days
to convict 17 year-old Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena Six to go on
trial. He was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy charges
and now faces up to 22 years in prison.
Black residents say that race has always been an issue in Jena,
which is 85 percent white, and that the charges against the Jena Six
are no exception.
The origins of the story can be traced back to early September
when a black high school student requested permission to sit under a
tree in the schoolyard where usually only white students sat. The next
day three nooses were found hanging from the tree.
Last December, six black students at Jena High School were
arrested after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and
suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were
charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy. They face
up to 100 years in prison without parole.
The Jena 6, as they have come to be known, range in age from
fifteen to seventeen. Just over a week ago, an all-white jury took less
than two days to convict seventeen-year-old Mychal Bell, the first of
the Jena 6 to go on trial. He was convicted of aggravated battery and
conspiracy charges and now faces up to twenty-two years in prison.
Black residents say race has always been an issue in Jena, which is 85%
white and that the charges against the Jena 6 are no exception.
The origins of the story can be traced back to early
September, when a black high school student requested permission to sit
under a tree in the schoolyard, where usually only white students sat.
The next day, three nooses were found hanging from the tree.
JESSE BEARD: Black girls over there, black boys right
here. Some black people standing right -- a couple. All the band geeks
right there. White folks under the tree. And then you might -- it’s
like…
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Jesse Beard, a freshman in high school and one of Jena 6, took us to where the nooses were hung.
JESSE BEARD: One day, I just wanted to -- maybe the
first, second day, we started riding the bus, me and Robert. And we
came through, and I seen something hanging there. I told Robert. He
looked at it. He’s like, “Them nooses right there.” He was getting mad.
Everybody was getting -- I started getting mad. By the time everybody
came, they was trying to cut them down.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Robert Bailey, seventeen years old and
a safety receiver for the school football team, is another of the Jena
6 facing life behind bars. He described his reaction to the nooses.
ROBERT BAILEY: It was in the early morning. I seen them
hanging. I’m thinking the KKK, you know, were hanging nooses. They want
to hang somebody. Real nooses, the ones you see on TV are the kind of
nooses they were, the ones they play in the movies and they were
hanging all the people, you know, and the thing dropped, those were the
kind of nooses they were. I know it was somebody white that hung the
nooses in the tree. You know, I don’t know another way to put it, but,
you know, I was disappointed, because, you know, we do little pranks --
you know, toilet paper, that’s a prank, you know what I’m saying? Paper
all over the square, all the pranks they used to do, that’s pranks.
Nooses hanging there -- nooses ain't no prank.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: The school’s superintendent dismissed
the nooses as a prank, and after three days’ suspension, the three
white students who hung the nooses were allowed back to school.
Caseptla Bailey, Robert's mother, said the school did not inform the
parents of the incident.
CASEPTLA BAILEY: The school didn’t tell me. I didn’t
know that it happened, so therefore I didn’t call to find out what
happened on that particular day.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: To Caseptla Bailey, the meaning of the nooses was clear.
CASEPTLA BAILEY: It meant hatred, to the other race. It
meant that “We’re going to kill you, you're going to die.” You know, it
sent a message: “This is not the place for you to sit. This is not your
damn tree. Do not sit here. You know, you ought to remain in your
place, know your place and stay in your place. You’re out of your
boundaries.” And the first thing now that the sheriff department or
that the chief of police want to say that -- as well as the
superintendent -- one had nothing to do with the other. Now, come on
now!
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Most people we spoke to in Jena’s white
community, however, see no connection between the students’ charges and
race. Barbara Murphy, the town librarian, claims there isn’t a race
problem in Jena.
BARBARA MURPHY: We don’t have a race problem. It’s not
black against white. It’s crime. The nooses? I don’t even know why they
were there, what they were supposed to mean. There’s pranks all the
time, of one type or another, going on. And it just didn’t seem to be
racist to me.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: A few days after the nooses were hung,
the entire black student body staged an impromptu demonstration,
crowding underneath the tree during lunch hour. Justin Purvis, the
student who first asked to sit underneath the tree, described how the
protest came about.
JUSTIN PURVIS: It was like, the first beginning, in the
courtyard, they said, “Y’all want to go stand under the tree?” We said,
“Yeah.” They said, “If you go, I’ll go. If you go, I’ll go.” One person
went, the next person went, everybody else just went.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: The school responded to the protest by
calling police and the district attorney. At an assembly the same day,
the District Attorney Reed Walters, accompanied by armed policeman,
addressed the students. Substitute teacher Michelle Rogers, one of the
few black teachers at the school, was there. She recalls the DA's words
to the assembled high schoolers.
MICHELLE ROGERS: The kids didn't say anything. They
were listening. The kids were quiet. And so, District Attorney Reed
Walters, you know, proceeded to tell those kids that “I could end your
lives with the stroke of a pen.” And the kids were just -- it was like
in awe that the district -- you know, Reed Walters would tell these
kids that. He held a pen in his hand and told those kids that, “See
this pen in my hand? I can end your lives with the stroke of a pen.”
JACQUIE SOOHEN: A series of incidents followed
throughout the fall. In October, a black student was beaten for
entering a private all-white party. Later that month, a white student
pulled a gun on a group of black students at a gas station, claiming
self-defense. The black students wrestled the gun away and reported the
incident to police. They were charged with assault and robbery of the
gun. No charges were ever filed against the white students in either
incident. Then, in late November, someone tried to burn down the high
school, creating even more tension.
Four days later, a white student was allegedly attacked in a
school fight. The victim was taken to hospital and released shortly
with a concussion. He attended a school function that evening. Six
black students were charged with attempted second-degree murder and
conspiracy to commit murder, on charges that leave them facing between
twenty and one hundred years in jail. The defendants, ranging in age
from fifteen to seventeen, had their bonds set at between $70,000 and
$138,000. The attack was written up in the local paper as fact, and DA
Reed Walters published a statement in which he said, "When you are
convicted, I will seek the maximum penalty allowed by law."
MINISTER: We have come today to stand against what we consider to be a great evil.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Since their arrest, the defendants’
families have been speaking out and fighting for the release of their
sons. Two of the six, including Mychal Bell, who was recently
convicted, were unable to make bond and have spent close to seven
months in jail to date.
CASEPTLA BAILEY: No justice!
PROTESTERS: No peace!
CASEPTLA BAILEY: No justice!
PROTESTERS: No peace!
CASEPTLA BAILEY: No justice!
PROTESTERS: No peace!
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Caseptla Bailey began writing letters to
state and national agencies, including the Department of Justice,
immediately after the charges were filed.
CASEPTLA BAILEY: The first thing was devastation. You
know, I was down when it first happened. You know, I was very
devastated. I was hurt, upset, angry, mad, frustrated. You know, I had
so many emotions, crying a lot of nights, you know, trying to figure
out where can I go from here. You know, a lot of times when you're
backed into a corner or you’re backed into a wall, naturally you're
going to come out fighting. You know, you're not going to -- you’re
either going to fall and die, or you're going to come out fighting.
You know, I’m just sending out these letters to anyone that
would have a listening ear and to anyone that, you know, I thought that
might help the situation. That's how I fight back, you know, by putting
the pen to the paper.
They want to take these kids -- my son, as well as all these
other children -- lock them up, throw away the key. You know, that's a
tradition for black males. So they want to keep that tradition going,
because they want to keep institutionalized slavery alive and well.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: At a friendly pickup game of football,
Caseptla’s son Robert shows off the skills that made him a star player
of the high school football team. Robert was in jail for over two
months before his mother was able to raise the money for her son's bond
using three pieces of property from different family members.
Seventeen-year-old Robert Bailey has no criminal record.
ROBERT BAILEY: I ain’t got no criminal record, nothing.
I ain’t got no probation, community service or nothing, nothing like
that. The DA, he ain’t after finding the truth. That’s what a DA’s for,
to after find the truth, you know, of the case. He’s just, you know,
trying to put me up in a jail cell, for life. Fifty years, twenty-five
to a hundred years, you can just say “forever.” Twenty years is
forever, to me.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Robert wasn’t the only one with a
promising future. All of the Jena 6 were athletes, and five of the six
were on the high school football team. Marcus Jones, the father of
seventeen-year-old Mychal Bell, has a stack of scholarship offers for
his son.
MARCUS JONES: LSU, Southern Miss, Ol’ Miss, University of New York…
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Mychal is a star running back and a strong student who is being actively scouted by a number of colleges.
MARCUS JONES: We're not blaming the victim for the
charges or none of that. The DA is a racist DA. You know, I’m not
calling him out for being a racist. I’m calling him out as being a
racist due to his track record. The reason we is taking a stand for our
kids for what he’s not doing is right, ’cause, you know, we’re tired of
it, you know, ’cause if we, you know, we sat down and lay back and let
him railroad our kids, too, he’s going to continue to do that to black
people in this town. You know, so we have to take a stand now. Somebody
has to take a stand now. If not, he’s going to continue to fill the
prisons up with black people more and more.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Mr. Bell believes that his son is learning a valuable lesson from this experience.
MARCUS JONES: One of the best lessons that my son could
learn that’s one of the best lessons: to know what it is to be black
now. You know, if this don’t teach him what it is to be black now, I
don’t know what will. But he’s seventeen now. You know, he’s got a lot
of life left ahead of him. And the day he set foot out of jail, I’m
going to tell him, I’m going to tell him again, “You know what it is to
be black now. Here it is.”
JACQUIE SOOHEN: For Democracy Now!, this is Jacquie Soohen, reporting from Jena, Louisiana.
