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Justice for the Jena 6

September 21, 2007

Video: "CWS stands with the Jena 6" (Also on YouTube.)

On Thursday, September 20, more than 10,000 demonstrators from across the U.S. traveled to the small town of Jena, Louisiana, to protest the unjust treatment of six young Black men, high school students, arrested and initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white schoolmate last year.

Now called the Jena 6, the young men still face reduced charges that could result in years of prison time. Their white classmates, also involved in the incidents that led to the charges, have not been prosecuted at all.

The charges stem from an incident last fall in which three white students were suspended for three days after hanging nooses from a school yard tree. Tensions rose over the ensuing months, culminating in the six Black teens being charged with attempted murder. One of the Black students, Mychal Bell, who was 16 at the time of the youths' trial, initially was tried as an adult.

There are still serious concerns about apparent racial disparities in the justice system.

Statement of solidarity with the victims of racism

CWS ribbon

John McCullough encourages viewers to make and wear black and yellow ribbons--like the people in the video--and to post their own videos on justice issues.

By Rev. John L. McCullough, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Church World Service

Our country's system of blind justice purports to guarantee equal protection under the law for all who come before it. And moral imperative compels us to honor each other’s humanity.

Sadly, both justice and morality are missing in the case of six Black high school youths facing the possibility of years in jail following a racial dispute that boiled over into violence in the small southern town of Jena, Louisiana.

Yesterday, like a flashback to a sorrowful past when hundreds of thousands of people took part in the civil rights marches of the 1960s, busloads of people again marched on a small southern town to demand justice.

The youngsters–called the Jena 6–appear to have been stripped of their civil rights by a prosecutor bent on presenting us with a living example of just how much race matters in some quarters when justice is being dispensed.

Racism is one of the worst tragedies of American life. It also is one of the most denied and least discussed. Until we change that, we will forever be marching for the justice that every American ought to be able to take for granted.

We need more than a mere balancing of the scales of justice in Jena, Louisiana, so that justice is doled out in equal measures to people of all races. We need a thorough soul searching, a soul cleansing, if you will, so that all Americans–in that small southern town and beyond–can see and understand the damage done to our souls and our society when we deny justice and humanity to any person for any reason.

For too long we have failed to honor each other even in our differences. The atrocity in Jena, Louisiana, is the end result of that failure.

As a humanitarian agency we advocate for human rights and justice worldwide. The events in Jena remind us that our work in the United States is not yet done. We stand with the Jena 6 and with a call for a just and appropriate legal decision in this matter, because we cannot stand racism, bigotry, or injustice.

It is time for a new, enlightened beginning, and we call on people across the nation and around the world to stand with us as we raise our voices as one in a mighty chorus of protest over injustice wherever it exists.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;

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