Free the Jena 6

Dear friends,

If you haven’t yet heard about the movement to Free the Jena 6, stop what you’re doing and read this: http://www.revcom.us/a/101/jena-en.html (or scroll down for the basics on this case).

I am writing in some urgency to solicit your help in contributing and raising the money to send a busload of students, Harlem residents and revolutionaries down to Jena, Louisiana next Thursday for the sentencing of Mychal Bell. He is the first of six Black high school students facing decades in prison after a grotesque Jim Crow trial for standing up against NOOSES hung from a “whites only” tree in their schoolyard.

On Thursday, September 20th, Mychal Bell – convicted before an all-white jury without a single witness being called on his behalf – will be sentenced. He has been in jail since December 4th – already having done more time than the police officers who shot Sean Bell 50 times.

A line must be drawn and the Jena Six must go free!

The Revolution Clubs in Harlem and Revolution Books have been out on the streets in Harlem, on campuses and in classrooms around the city spreading the word about this case and the profound struggle needed to defeat it. Now, they are organizing a bus to get down to Jena next Thursday (see a picture below). We have to draw a line in Jena – and we can. This case has struck a nerve. They’ve spoken in front of 400 students at a Bushwick High School (where 35 were arrested for going to a friend’s funeral last year) where they’re working on logistics to get 25 youth on the bus and among 200 people we met in Harlem who expressed interest to get on the bus, 2 homeless men have put down $7 deposits to hold their seats while they try to raise the $200 they would each need. And all of that just happened in one day.

You can make a critical difference. Nooses must not be allowed to fly. Not in 2007. Not ever.

1. Get on the bus to be in Jena on Thursday, September 20th. (Busses will be leaving NY on Tuesday night.) Spread the word. Wear black on Thursday. Walk out of school or work. Send a message: Drop all the charges! Free the Jena 6!

2. Give a contribution towards a bus of Harlem residents, students, revolutionaries and others to be in Jena. In order to sell tickets for $25 – 100 each we need to raise donations of $10,000 (and this is just to fill one bus).

Go to Revolution Newspaper’s website, www.revcom.us for updated information on the case.

This legal lynching cannot be allowed to go down.

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BUDGET (call me at 917.971.4588 if you can contribute, as the contributions will go directly to the bus company):

Bus for a 22-hour trip each way – $9,000

Food and shelter for 45 people – $1,000

Bus parking in Manhattan or transportation to Newark for 45 people – $1,000

Ticket price at present: $200 a ticket

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All Out! Support National Days of Protest to Free the Jena Six

Posted at http://www.revcom.us/a/100/jena-edit-en.html

“This is an outrage!”

“This is appalling in every sense of the word.”

“This should not be tolerated…any longer!”

“This injustice, inequality and racism infuriates me.”

“These young men gotta be freed!”

“What can I do?”

This is what people SAY when they hear about the case of the Jena 6.

AND NOW THIS MASS SENTIMENT MUST BECOME A MATERIAL POLITICAL FORCE TO STOP A GREAT INJUSTICE.

The “Jena 6” are six Black students in Jena, Louisiana, who could go to prison for decades because they stood up against deeply entrenched racism.

This all started on September 1, 2006. Black students at Jena High sat under what had been, in 2006(!), a “WHITE ONLY TREE.”

The next day, racist students hung three NOOSES from the tree.

For all to see, a straight-up racist threat: KKK. Lynching. Black bodies at the bottom of the river.

Dozens of Black students stand together under the tree in a courageous, defiant protest. A school assembly is called where a white district attorney tells the Black students to keep their mouths shut about the nooses. Then he threatens them: “I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen.” When racist white students jump a Black student walking into a party in Jena, one white student gets probation. Later, when a Jena white threatens a Black student with a gun, and the Black student disarms him, it’s the African-American who is arrested. And then when a fight breaks out that sends a white student to the hospital for an hour, the law comes down on six Black students, charging them with attempted murder.

16-year-old Mychal Bell has already been convicted—by an all-white jury, without a single witness being called on his behalf—of second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit second-degree battery. He faces up to 22 years in prison. And the system continues to threaten to ruin the lives of the other five youth who still face serious charges.

The railroading and persecution of these young Black men doesn’t have anything to do with who did what to whom in a schoolyard fight—they are being punished because they, and the other Black students in Jena, dared to stand up against outrageous discrimination!

Up Against a System

The case of the Jena 6 concentrates the situation that still exists throughout this country—where racism and segregation is the status quo and white supremacy is enforced in unofficial but also OFFICIAL ways this whole system operates. School officials, police, courts, authorities, and government officials have worked together to persecute the Jena 6. And this was approved from the highest authorities in the land when a representative of the US Justice Department came to Jena and said they could find no violation in the way Jena High authorities have handled things and that in fact “all of their procedures were ‘regular’ and not ‘irregular.’”

No real punishment for white students who hang lynch nooses on a schoolyard tree: REGULAR. Threatening Black students who protest this racist threat: REGULAR. Giving a slap on the hand to white students who attack Black students: REGULAR. Black students facing decades of prison time for fighting with white students: REGULAR.

This is the REGULAR workings of a white supremacist system. A system whose very foundations are deeply entwined with the outright slavery and oppression of Black people.

A system which has no future for the masses of Black youth—for millions and millions of Black youth, what they can expect is a future of low-wage jobs at best, along with incarceration, police murder, demonization, and full-out criminalization. And for those who do “make it out,” there is still the continual battle against discrimination and oppression at every turn.

Time to ACT!

It is not enough for many people to just know about the Jena 6. It is not enough for people to just be outraged about this case. It is not enough for people to read about it, or for a few well-known people to “shine a light” on it. It will take a truly mass struggle by the people to FREE THE JENA 6. A struggle that is broad, diverse, and determined. And every person of conscience must ask: WHAT AM I DOING TO STOP THIS GREAT INJUSTICE?

Across the country people are beginning to organize protests demanding Free the Jena 6. We are calling for people to support these protests, including two NATIONAL DAYS OF ACTION TO FREE THE JENA 6 ON SEPTEMBER 12 AND 20 —DETERMINED, DEFIANT ACTION THAT SAYS:

NO TO WHITE SUPREMACY. WE DEMAND: FREE THE JENA 6. WE WILL KEEP ON FIGHTING UNTIL ALL THE CHARGES ARE DROPPED. THIS SYSTEM OWES THESE YOUTH AN APOLOGY!

SEPTEMBER 20 – The day Mychal Bell is scheduled to be sentenced: Join with and build the broad call that has gone out for people to COME TO JENA! PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE, OF ALL NATIONALITIES – CHARTER BUSES, CAR POOL, BUY A PLANE TICKET, AND COME TO JENA FOR A MASS PROTEST. People all over the country and the world: find ways to boldly and in a mass way manifest and stand in solidarity with the struggle in Jena.

FREE THE JENA 6!

DROP ALL THE CHARGES!