Jena 6 story stirs passion about race

A year ago, history began to register the sequence of events that eventually would capture the attention of blacks and whites across the United States: the fights, fires, racial conflict and legal maneuvers we now call the case of the "Jena 6."

At the time, cries of injustice were heard only by those living in that small Louisiana town, a place where the Ku Klux Klan once burned crosses on lawns and residents of LaSalle Parish voted for David Duke when the former KKK Grand Wizard ran for public office in 1990 and 1991.

News articles began to trickle out, and a relatively coherent account of what happened emerged. By August, many observers were outraged enough by what they thought they knew to discuss the case in classrooms and churches, to plan a demonstration, to hire charter buses, to fuel the fire of collective indignation. Thousands gathered at a Sept. 20 rally to show support for six black teenagers charged with felonies in a fight they had with whites, fights that followed the hanging of nooses from a schoolyard tree and months of conflict. The perception among many was that the rendering of justice had been too generous to whites and too cruel to blacks.

I went to Jena to cover the Sept. 20 rally by thousands of civil rights supporters. I wrote stories about the case and about the local reaction in the days preceding the rally. I pieced together the story like any journalist would, relying on a slew of information from reputable sources.

As my stories appeared in The Post and Courier, two white readers left voice messages arguing that the six black teenagers were winning too much sympathy from the public. The teens had attacked and injured a white student. They had committed uncondonable acts of violence and deserved to be punished, the readers said.

I received a message from a black reader who pointed out that white students had attacked blacks first. I heard from another observer who said the black students were never armed during the various fights, while whites did use weapons, bottles in one instance and a shotgun in another.

Others have noted defendant Mychal Bell's criminal record. Perhaps Bell, who was 16 when the fight broke out in December and was convicted as an adult of aggravated assault and conspiracy, isn't the innocent victim his supporters say he is. (His conviction was thrown out by a judge just before the rally on grounds that Bell should have been tried as a juvenile.)

I wrote my stories, but still the questions rankled. Was the town of Jena, population 3,000 and about 85 percent white, really that racist? Was

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters really only concerned about the status of the white victim and not influenced by racial matters? "It is not and never has been about race," Walters has said. "It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions."

Was the schoolyard tree really a place only for whites? Was the verdict handed down by the all-white jury harsh because the defendants were black? Or because the jury was white? Or because no blacks were part of the jury?

Heart of the matter

Lisa Robinson, a College of Charleston professor who teaches courses on social justice and women's studies, called the rally a milestone of the post-civil rights era and a victory for protesters.

"It's a victory because it encouraged people to seek change back home," she said. "But at the same time, you keep thinking how history repeats itself. ... People in the community have to keep these issues in the forefront."

Robinson said she was disturbed by a recent Associated Press article published in The Post and Courier on Sept. 23 under the headline "The Untold Story" that attempted to clarify the facts of the case.

The writer pointed out that only two nooses were hung from the "white tree," that the tree provided shade to all students, that the white students responsible for hanging the nooses were isolated in a different school for a month and not suspended for two weeks, that there was no connection between the noose incident and the December fight, and that Bell was on probation for battery and property damage. Furthermore, the reporter wrote, the six-member jury was all white because no blacks showed up for the selection process.

It goes without saying that reporters should get their facts straight. But the AP story seemed to miss the point. Does it really matter whether there were two nooses, not three? Does Bell's legal status justify the felony charges (when whites were charged only with misdemeanors or not at all) and the harsh sentencing? Is it really the fault of Jena's black community that the jury was all white? And just because teachers and school administrators at Jena High School say the tree was used by blacks, does that mean the noose hangings and subsequent conflicts were not racially motivated?

On Wednesday, The New York Times published an op-ed piece by Walters, who defended his actions as district attorney. He wrote that the attack by Bell on the white student, 17-year-old Justin Barker, was unrelated to the noose incident and other racial conflicts. But Walters failed to discuss the main point: the rendering of what many perceive to be unequal justice. By leaving that issue unexplained, he missed a critical opportunity and left himself open to continued criticism.

On Thursday, after 10 months in jail, Bell was released on a $45,000 bond after Walters affirmed he would try the teenager as a juvenile, according to news reports.

What happened?

To this day, many observers don't know who started it all. Here are a few additional details, according to news reports:

--A fire at the high school, set shortly after the noose incident, remains unsolved.

--In a fight at a party at the Jena Fair Barn before the brawl that resulted in the arrest of the Jena 6, a white man threatened and perhaps struck at least one black teen with a beer bottle. The blacks were taunted with racial epithets. The fight followed attempts by the group of black teens to enter the building.

--In a fight at the Gotta Go convenience store, a white student threatened blacks with a shotgun; the blacks wrested the weapon away from the white man and took it to the police. One of the black teens, 16-year-old Robert Bailey Jr., was charged with theft of a firearm, second-degree robbery and disturbing the peace.

--Initial charges of attempted murder were reduced to aggravated battery, which requires the use of a deadly weapon, according to Louisiana law. The district attorney argued that Bell's gym shoes, used to kick Barker, constituted a deadly weapon.

A black reader left me a message, asking: If Jena is such a tolerant place, why did it shut down on the day of the rally? Indeed, nearly all private businesses and public offices were closed on Thursday, Sept. 20. Most of Jena's residents were either indoors or out of town.

As for the rally, it was big — perhaps 10,000 showed up, perhaps more — and peaceful. I observed no fights or animosity, no expressions of hate, only deep concern and camaraderie.

An observer

Before departing on an uncomfortable chartered bus secured by the Charleston Branch of the NAACP, people offered me advice: Be careful, they said. To tell you the truth, the idea that I might be in danger never crossed my mind, and I wondered why it was crossing the minds of others. Though the vast majority of marchers in Jena were black, dozens of white faces could be picked out in the crowd.

When I returned home after a grueling 18-hour bus ride, people wanted to know: Did I feel uncomfortable being the only white person on the bus? I am a reporter. I went to cover an event. I went to learn something about my country and its people. Why, I asked myself, did people think in these terms? Of course, I knew.

The events of the Jena 6 case described in news stories, blogs, columns and YouTube videos may help us understand what happened, but they are merely the residue left at the bottom of the sink after the dishes have been cleared away. So many months later, it is difficult to know what precisely was served or the severity of the indigestion the meal provoked.

The dynamics that contribute to, and result from, racial conflict often are complicated and difficult to discern.

Who can know with certainty today what insults were flung, what threats were made, what long-standing local animosities were unburied?

Yet the case of the Jena 6 and the public's reaction has taught us something. The facts of the case aside, the legacy of Jim Crow continues to be felt.