Sharpton supports accused students

Mary Foster

JENA, La. — Concerns about a different standard of justice for blacks and whites, stemming from an attack on a student in this northern Louisiana town, will attract a cadre of national civil rights leaders, the Rev. Al Sharpton says.

“In 2007, we will come and we will keep coming until justice rains down like water,” Sharpton told a church congregation Sunday. “It will be a revolving door down here.”

Sharpton’s visit came in response to a case being referred to as the “Jena Six” — six black teenagers charged with attempted second-degree murder after a white schoolmate was beaten up.

The charges sparked outrage in the black community, drawing attention from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is now monitoring the cases, Sharpton and others.

Mychal Bell, who was 16 at the time of the assaulting, was tried as an adult and convicted of reduced charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy. He remains in jail, unable to raise $90,000 bond. He faces up to 22 years in prison when sentenced on Sept. 20.

“These young boys should be in school without stains on their names,” Sharpton said.

In a sermon at the Trout Creek Baptist Church, Sharpton said he expected to see a scene like that of the 1960s when civil rights workers came to Louisiana to support integration. Sharpton said the case is drawing attention from national black leaders, including Martin Luther King III and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

With the family members of the accused in the audience, Sharpton told the predominantly black congregation, “I did not come to Jena to start trouble. I came to Jena to stop trouble.”

Sharpton said he would keep coming back to the town “until they leave our young men alone.”

Church member Donald Ray Smith, 47, found Sharpton’s presence inspirational.

“He really made an impression on me,” Smith said. “I think this will go a long way toward uniting us.”

Jena, a town of 3,000, is mostly white with about 350 black residents. Residents said race relations had been sensitive — though not explosive — until incidents began unfolding last fall at Jena High School.

The morning after a black student sat under a tree on campus where white students traditionally congregated, three nooses — lynching symbols in the old South — were hung in the tree. Students accused of placing them were suspended from the school for a short period, but tensions increased. Fights between black and white students were reported on and off campus.

Then on Dec. 4, six black students were accused of jumping Justin Barker, 18, who is white, and beating and kicking him at the high school.

Barker was treated at a hospital emergency room and went to a school function the same night. Bell, a star football player who was being courted by UCLA and Louisiana State University, was found guilty by an all-white jury.

“You cannot have two levels of justice,” Sharpton said. “Some boys assault people and are charged with nothing. Some boys hang nooses and finish the school year. And some boys are charged with attempted murder.”

Trial dates for Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis, Carwin Jones and Theodore Shaw, all 18 — who still face attempted murder and conspiracy charges — and an unidentified juvenile have not been set.

(Associated Press)