Jena Defendent Mychal Bell Released

Bell’s Release Lauded by Activists; Jackson Says Other Jena Six Trials Need Change of Venue

Date: Friday, September 28, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

After being locked up for 10 months in a Louisiana jail, the first thing Mychal Bell wanted to do Thursday evening was pray. The second thing the teen wanted to do was eat barbecued ribs.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, one of several national leaders calling for justice in the case of the teens known as the Jena Six, prayed with Bell, his parents and supporters outside the LaSalle Parish Courthouse in the tiny town of Jena. Sharpton jokingly told the crowd Bell’s mother would “have to take care of the ribs.”

Bell’s release from jail came just one week after thousands from across the country converged on the town calling for the equal justice in the case of six teens charged with beating a white schoolmate. Bell is the only who has been tried and convicted, but that conviction was overturned two weeks ago when an appeals court judge said the matter should have been handled in juvenile court, given Bell’s age at the time of the Dec. 4. 2006 incident.

Wednesday, Bell’s parents and civil rights leaders met with Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and asked her to intervene. Blanco, a Democrat who had said she could do nothing because of the state’s separation of powers, called LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters with the group in her office and asked him not to pursue an appeal of the ruling. Walters had indicated he would indeed pursue the appeal, but announced Thursday that he would not.

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True Justice for the Jena 6

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. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."¹

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. Together, we can make sure their story is told, that this becomes an issue for the Governor of Louisiana, and that justice is provided for the Jena 6. It starts now. Please add your voice:

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/

The noose-hanging incident and the DA's visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were arrested for the theft of the gun.²

That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger." After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.³

Six Black Jena High students, Robert Bailey (17), Theo Shaw (17), Carwin Jones (18), Bryant Purvis (17), Mychal Bell (16) and an unidentified minor, were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. Bail was set so high -- between $70,000 and $138,000 -- that the boys were left in prison for months as families went deep into debt to release them.⁴

The first trial ended last month, and Mychal Bell, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, Mychal's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them.

Mychal is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31st, and could go to jail for 22 years.⁵ Theo Shaw's trial is next. He will finally make bail this week.

The Jena Six are lucky to have parents and loved ones who are fighting tooth and nail to free them. They have been threatened but they are standing strong. We know that if the families have to go it alone, their sons will be a long time coming home. They will lose precious years to Jena's outrageous attempt to maintain a racist status quo. But if we act now, we can make a difference.

Please add your voice to the voices of these families in Jena, and help bring Mychal, Theo, Robert, Carwin, and Bryant home. By clicking below, you can demand that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco get involved to make sure that justice is served for Mychal Bell, and that DA Reed Walters drop the charges against the 5 boys who have not yet gone to trial.

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/

Thank You and Peace,

-- James, Van, Gabriel, Clarissa, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 17th, 2007

References:

1. "Injustice in Jena as Nooses Hang From the ‘White Tree,'" truthout, July 3, 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070307B.shtml

2. "Racial demons rear heads," Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/yvh7t5

3. See reference #1.

4. See reference #1.

5. "'Jena Six' defendant convicted," Town Talk, June 29, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/ysxtgg

Other resources:

NPR: Searching for Justice in Jena 6 Case (streaming audio)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11756302

Democracy Now! - The case of the Jena Six ...
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413220

Too Sense: Free The Jena Six Now
http://halfricanrevolution.blogspot.com/2007/07/free-jena-six-now.html

While Seated: Jena Six
http://www.whileseated.org/photo/003244.shtml

Nooses, attacks and jail for black students in Jena Louisiana
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/28/144445/384

Justice In Jena, by Jordan Flaherty
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=12783&sectionID=30

The Perpetrator becomes the Prosecutor (and other related entries)
http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/blog/

'Stealth racism' stalks deep South
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/6685441.stm

6 arrested, charged in woman's weeklong torture

From The Charleston Gazette - Charleston, West Virginia

Carmen Williams doesn’t understand why her 20-year-old daughter was tortured, raped and tied up in a shed.

Police tell her that what happened was probably a hate crime, that it happened because Megan Williams is black.

“Every time they stabbed her, they called her ‘nigger,’” her mother said.

But whatever the reason, Carmen Williams wants people to know what happened to her daughter. She agreed to talk to a reporter from her daughter’s room at Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital.

She said a man and a woman — who Megan Williams thought were her friends — took her to the house of Frankie Lee Brewster in Pecks Mill, Logan County.

Megan Williams was held in the house for about a week, police said.

According to criminal complaints filed against six people in this case, she was beaten, stabbed, choked, sexually assaulted and threatened with death.

The details are even more horrible. According to the complaints, she was forced to eat dog and rat feces and to lick up blood. She was made to lick parts of Brewster’s body, under the threat of death. Her hair was pulled out. She was made to drink from the toilet. She was sexually assaulted while hot water was poured on her body, and while a man held a knife to her.

Click Here For Details...

They Didn't Get The Memo That Slavery Was Over

If this was a movie you would need every ounce of your suspension of disbelief for the movie to maintain its integrity. Buried on the last two pages of March's edition of People's Magazine is the most incredible story that only occurs in countries where lawlessness runs rampant. Meet the Wall family who claimed they were held in slavery until 1961. Slavery which was abolished in 1865 continued in a tiny rural town in Mississippi. This tiny town in Gillsburg, Mississippi was void of electricity, phone, or radio, and trips into town were forbidden for the Walls. The Wall family had no idea that they were free even though Black families in nearby Liberty, Miss., owned businesses and attended school.

Cain Wall Sr. was born in 1902 into peonage in St. Helena Parish, La. He worked the fields and milked cows for white families while believing he had no rights as a man. Peonage is a system where one is bound to service for payment of a debt...

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Catherine Tate - Translator

That Chandra Holloway Can Ballroom All Night!

This was at her mother's birthday party, Detroit West, on September 1, 2007. Loads of fun!

Mildred Kelley's Birthday Celebrations (Sept. 1)

And a good time was had by all on September 1 and Sept. 3. Sept. 1 at the Detroit West Club and Sept. 3 was an outside fish fry at the home of Julius and Mildred Kelley. Mildred, treat each day as the "first day of the rest of your life." May God bless you!

Back To School

Group News Blog discusses Brittney Exline, the 15-year-old who is the youngest female of African descent accepted into Ivy League School. The blog questions Ms. Exline's engineering-political science double-major entry into University of Pennsylvania: "Is this wise? Sticking an admittedly smart 15-year old with 18-22 year old kids? What smart kids want most is the approval and acceptance of other smart kids. Yet their social and relationship skills don't necessarily match up with their intellectual abilities, while their biology will always lag behind. Even though she may keep up academically, I wonder if taking her out of her natural biological and social grouping does her a long-term favor .On the other hand, getting picked on in high school because you're different. Not good. And the rush that comes from being truly challenged. Wow."

Read more HERE