The Sept. 20 mass march in Jena drew at least 50,000 protesters, inspiring similar calls to action nationwide. From Southern California to New England, activists organized local protests, pickets and walk-outs demanding the complete freedom of the Jena 6.
The Jena 6 are African American high school students from Jena, La. who were falsely charged with attempted murder and similar charges in 2006 for defending themselves against racist threats at their school.
On Sept. 20, in the Watts area of South Central Los Angeles, a predominantly Black neighborhood, over 1,000 students walked out of Locke High School. They held signs that read “Free the Jena 6, down with white supremacy” and “Free the Jena 6, down with Jim Crow.”
The students were mostly African American, but many Latino students joined them as they took over the street and shut down traffic, marching to Southwest College. Locke students took copies of Liberation newspaper displaying the “Free the Jena 6” cover story as they marched.
At another demonstration later that day, organized by the Active Students for African People and sponsored by ANSWER and the PSL, over 500 demonstrators filled Leimert Park. Dozens came after walking out of nearby Crenshaw High School. Another vigil organized by the Community Coalition and Project Islamic Hope drew nearly 200 participants.
On Sept. 29 in Hartford, Conn., over 200 activists and community members rallied and marched. Kamora Herrington, a community activist in Hartford and one of the featured speakers, demanded, “Justice for all, regardless of skin color or bank account size,” and called to attention the links between the oppression of the African American community and that of the entire working class. Herrington spoke about her daily worries that her son, a 17-year-old African American, will become a target for the police.
Several speakers also emphasized the racist nature of the Connecticut prison system in which 75 percent of all adult inmates are Black or Latino, although these communities only compose 21 percent of the state’s total population. This disproportionate incarceration rate is distorted even further among young people. Eighty-five percent of juveniles in the system are Black or Latino.
In New York City, students from many high school and university campuses walked out on Oct. 1. At Columbia University, around 300 students marched with banners reading “We all live in Jena” and the message of solidarity between organizations and communities permeated the event.
The first speaker at the opening rally began by acknowledging October as Queer Awareness Month. The President of the Muslim Students Association then linked the anti-racist struggle in Jena to the climate of anti-Muslim bigotry created around Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s visit to campus. Lucha, a political action group formed out of last year’s anti-Minutemen struggle, collected 150 signatures at the protest to contribute to the Jena 6 petition campaign launched by the ANSWER Coalition in New York City.
In Washington, D.C. on Oct. 2, in front of onlooking commuters and tourists, over 115 people protested in front of the Justice Department to demand the freedom of the Jena 6. Organized by the ANSWER Coalition as part of a day of protest in both D.C. and San Francisco, the demonstration attracted support from a wide range of community groups, churches and colleges.
Participants targeted the Justice Department to protest the enabling actions of the Local Louisiana U.S. Attorney, who has co-signed Reed Walters’ decisions at every turn. Protesters demanded Walters’ firing, and an investigation into all of the LaSalle Parish legal authorities with a hand in this injustice.
During Washington’s rush hour, hundreds of drivers honked their horns in support of the demonstration, and some commuters even joined in, swelling the picket line for over an hour. Tina Richards, CEO of Grassroots America, whose son is a disabled Iraq war veteran, connected the war abroad with the war against racism at home. The rally was chaired by PSL member Eugene Puryear.
On the same day in San Francisco, community members and activists came together in front of the Ninth Court of Appeals in downtown to stand in solidarity with the Jena 6.
Gloria La Riva, coordinator for the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, addressed the crowd speaking to the hypocrisy of the judicial system, demanding that the real criminals in the case of the Jena 6 be brought to justice, the district attorney, the white students who hung the nooses from the white tree and the whole system that supports such terrorism against the Black community.
Members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation organized for and attended all of these events.
As Jasimen Syler, UCLA student and organizer of the Leimert Park action in Los Angeles, said in an interview with Liberation: “As long as we live under a system that uses racism to divide students and working people, then the struggle will continue.”
Until the Six are free, neither are we!
Carlos Alvarez, Chris Garaffa, Ben Becker, Eugene Puryear and Mia Legault contributed to this report.
