Last fall in Jena, Louisiana, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest.
A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
It's a story that reads like one from the Jim Crow era, when judges, lawyers and all-white juries used the justice system to keep blacks in "their place"--but it's happening today. The families of these young men are fighting back, but the odds are stacked against them.
Only Bell remains in jail, on a $90,000 bond.
Bell is scheduled for a Sept. 20 sentencing hearing where he faces up to 22 years in prison.
We are wearing BLACK to support these 6 on the day of Mychal Bell's hearing.
2007-09-19
21:34:35
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