Update from Jena: Situation Intensifies as Reactionary Backlash Follows Historic Protest

Sunday, September 23, Jena, Louisiana. In the last three days, since tens of thousands from all over the country converged on the town to demand that the Jena 6 be freed, the situation has intensified.

In the late afternoon, after a full day of rallies and marches, buses of people had taken people to nearby Alexandria for a closing rally, music, and celebration of the day’s events. Some white racists repeatedly drove by demonstrators with nooses hanging from the back of their pickup truck. The driver of the truck with nooses in Alexandria, 18-year-old Jeremiah Munsen, and the passenger, a 16-year-old minor, were arrested. Brass knuckles and an unloaded rifle were found in the vehicle. Munsen was arrested on the grounds of inciting a riot, driving while intoxicated, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. While in custody the juvenile told authorities that he had “KKK” tattooed on his chest and that his relatives were involved in the KKK.

The next day, as tens of thousands of people had just returned home from demonstrating in Jena, there was a new outrage in the courtroom. At a hearing on Friday, the judge refused to release Mychal Bell on bond—so he is still being held in jail, even though his conviction has been overturned (see the news flash “New Outrage in the Jena 6 Case: Mychal Bell Not Granted Bond”).

Starting on September 20, a number of white supremacist websites put up all kinds of racist, hateful slurs about the Jena 6 case. And they delivered a blatant, murderous threat – posting the names, phone numbers, and addresses of family members of the Jena 6, basically putting out a call for racist vigilantes to take action.

A statement from Al Sharpton, who has been in communication with the families, says some family members have received "almost around the clock calls of threats and harassment.”

On September 22, The Town Talk, a newspaper in Alexandria, reported that Justin Barker, the white student involved in the schoolyard fight at Jena High, and his parents had given an interview to the editor of a white supremacist publication called the Nationalist. The Nationalist’s editor Richard Barrett also interviewed Jena Mayor Murphy McMillan. In that interview Barrett says he “would like to arrange to set aside some place for those opposing the colored folks or find out if you have such a place in mind.” According to The Town Talk, McMillan said a few moments later, “I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do. We will be aware that you are coming.”

In response to these new developments, the FBI has inserted themselves even more directly into the situation and announced that they are “investigating” the threats. This presence and involvement by the FBI is definitely NOT a good thing for the people and for the struggle. People should remember how during a town hall meeting in Jena on July 26, 2007, just before Mychal Bell was convicted, the FBI declared that they have had agents in Jena since a week or so after the nooses were hung at Jena High. And how after this, a representative of the U.S. Justice Department came to Jena and declared that the whole way things were being handled with the Jena 6 was “regular” and not “irregular.”

The FBI has a history of infiltrating, sabotaging, and destroying political movements and forces that are a threat to the system, including through outright murder of activists and those seen as leaders of the masses, especially with the COINTELPRO program of the 1960s that targeted the civil rights movement, Black liberation struggle, and revolutionary groups. They have infiltrated groups like the KKK and other right-wing organizations—and actually participated in reactionary attacks on the masses.

The initial gains in this case, like the conviction of Mychal Bell being overturned, only happened because of the power of the people’s struggle. And September 20 was an historic and powerful day that reverberated far and wide. The struggle to Free the Jena 6 took an important leap on this day, manifesting people’s outrage and determination to fight until the Jena 6 are free. The backlash to this—the system’s refusal to release Mychal Bell from jail; the continuing efforts to prosecute the five other Black youth; and the vicious KKK attacks and threats—all underscore the importance of this struggle getting broader, bigger, and more determined. And the people need to respond to these new attacks with even more resolve and new plans for how to take the political struggle to free the Jena 6 higher. We cannot allow the Jena 6, their family members, the Black community of Jena, and all those involved in the movement to Free the Jena 6 to be threatened, intimidated, and attacked in any way.