Free the Jena 6! Tune in to UhuruRadio.com

Free the Jena 6! is the subject of Uhuru on the Move this Sunday from 13:00 - 14:00 (1:00 - 2:00 p.m.) U.S. Eastern time on UhuruRadio.com

Our guests will be Tina Jones, mother of Bryant Purvis, and Theodore Shaw, father of Theo Shaw. Bryant and Theo are 2 of the 6 African teenagers charged with attempted murder after a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight at Jena High School in central Louisiana last December.

The white student suffered cuts and bruises and was treated and released from a local hospital. He had a criminal record that included bringing a gun to school. None of the Jena 6 had a prior police record, but they have spent many months in prison awaiting trial because bail (ransom) was set too high (between $70,000 and $138,000) for their working class families to pay.

On Friday, September 14, a state appeals court reversed the felony aggravated second-degree battery conviction of Mychal Bell by an all-white jury. The district attorney said he intends to appeal the reversal to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Theo Shaw's trial is next.

The beating incident followed a series of white-on-black attacks in Jena in which the white assailants were spared serious charges. White students hung nooses from a tree in the high school courtyard in a threat to African students who dared to hang out in the "whites only" gathering spot. The students who hung the noose received only a 3-day suspension from school.

After African students staged a peaceful protest of the noose-hanging, local district attourney Reed Walters called a school assembly in which he publicly threatened the black students, warning, “I can be your best friend or worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of a pen.”

Following his arrest, Bryant Purvis stated, "I think the district attorney is pinning it on us to make an example of us. In Jena, people get accused of things they didn't do a lot."

Tune in to hear what you can do to support these courageous African families.