A year ago Marcus Jones was in Dallas living what he describes as a peaceful life.
Today, he’s back in his hometown fighting to free his son, jailed Jena Six teen Mychal Bell.
“I thank God for being here, but I wish I could be here on better occasions,” Jones told students gathered on Friday night at Washington University for a panel discussion of six black teens who were initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate in Jena, La.
As a student at Jena High School years ago, Jones said he knew what his son and other blacks kids in Jena have to deal with.
“Young white kids, most of them don’t have contact with black people until they get to high school,” he said. And even in high school, black kids sit on one side and white kids on the other.
But Jones said it’s not white people he’s fighting against, it’s the legal system – one whose racial double standard did not just begin with the Jena Six.
“For the record, there are a lot of good people in Jena both black and white, but their problem is leadership,” said Tony Brown who first broke the Jena Six story in September 2006 on his radio show “Eyes Open.”
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the highest wrongful conviction rate in the nation.
Blacks make up about one-third of the state’s population, but represent 75 percent of those incarcerated.
The Jena Six story in particular is a stark illustration of a problem in America that many whites fall silent to – the mass incarceration of black youths, better known as the “school-to-prison pipeline.”
There are many overlapping causes, including a poorly orchestrated war on drugs initiative, deepening inequalities in income and education, and severe federal sentencing rules – all of which fall heavily on young black males, like the Jena Six.
Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis (who will have his juvenile court hearing on Nov. 8) and Theo Shaw, all ranging from ages 16 to 19, were all initially charged as adults with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy for beating a white classmate, Justin Barker. A sixth defendant was charged in the case as a juvenile.
In the months leading up to the Barker incident, racial tensions escalated after three nooses were found hanging from a tree on school grounds. When black students protested, the local district attorney Reed Walters told them, “I can take away your lives with a stroke of a pen.”
It’s a system Brown calls “placism,” in which white authorities use the legal system to keep blacks in their place.
“When Mychal Bell was running touchdowns and catching balls, they had no problems,” Brown said.
Like many small rural towns, Jena, in which 350 of the 3,000 residents are black, seems to be a bit behind times.
The town continues to retain its de facto form of segregation, despite a movement aimed to stop it 40 years ago.
“For the most part, black and white people get along,” Brown said. “The problem is those rural areas where they didn’t get the civil rights memo.”
In Jena, there is one black police officer, two black public school teachers and only three black businesses (a funeral home, a car wash and a barber shop). And unsurprisingly, the nine-member school board, which dismissed the noose incident as nothing but a youthful prank, has one African-American member.
The tree in the story itself stands as a bit of a paradox. It was planted about 20 years ago by a black female student and her white counterpart in an attempt to racially unify the school.
The tree has since been cut down.
The string of corruption in the Jena case goes beyond a reasonable doubt, Brown said – from the police not filing a single report that led up to the high-profile case, to Bell (who was 16 at the time) being convicted by an all-white jury and not having a single witness called to speak on his behalf.
The latest blow came earlier this month when Bell was ordered back to jail, after raising his $90,000 bail, for violating probation for previous juvenile convictions (two counts of simple battery in which he wrapped toilet paper around a teammate’s car and had a scuffle during a basketball game). His parents were ordered to pay all costs for court and Mychal’s incarceration.
Nowadays, Jones said, he tries to stay positive for his son. He thinks of only the happy memories, like when Mychal was selected for Louisiana’s all state football team. An accomplished athlete, Mychal was receiving scholarship offers from Division I schools even as a sophomore.
“Things like that keep going through my head,” said Jones, who visits his son every weekend at the Renaissance Home for Youth in Alexandria, La. “He was a good kid.”
But it still gets hard, he added.
“I just throw my head down because it’s hard to look at him in the eye when I leave. But I have to stay strong for my son.”
Mychal is expected to go to trial Dec. 6 – his father’s birthday.
Upcoming Jena protests
? National Black Out Day. People are asked to wear black and not to buy anything on Friday, Nov. 2. The protest will be used to signal the government that they need to intervene not only in Jena, but every place that systematically discriminates against minorities.
? Protest in Washington. The National Action Network is planning a protest in Washington D.C. from noon to 2 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 16 at the U.S. Dept. of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Interested parties can either ride from their city or caravan with NAN from major cities around the country. For a complete schedule, go to www.nationalactionnetwork.net.
