9-27-07, 9:36 am
Editor's Note: Tim Wheeler is a national correspondent for the People's Weekly World.
PA: I understand you were at the Jena March. What were some of the memorable sights and sounds?
TW: It was one of the most awesome demonstrations I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to many. Partly because it was so huge and in such a small town. I would estimate there were around 50,000 people there. A friend and I drove up from New Orleans, and when we arrived at 9:30 in the morning every street and every road leading into Jena was packed with motor coaches bumper-to-bumper, parked along both sides of the road. Every parking lot was filled with cars, buses, and vans. People had poured into the town from every point of the compass, from all across the country, especially from throughout the South, but also from the Midwest and the Northeast. The NAACP was one of the main mobilizers, and there were easily 250 or 300 buses that had been organized by the NAACP. It was such a huge outpouring, and I would guess it was 90% African American, probably more. The town was very, very quiet. All the businesses were closed. But this crowd was so disciplined, so peaceful and nonviolent, and obviously very conscious of the need to avoid any kind of provocation. They were very determined to heal divisions rather than aggravate them. I was very impressed by the way it was organized, by the unity, the spirit, and the determination to free these 6 young African Americans, who are facing very long prison terms for having been involved in a fist-fight. From all indications, they were highly aggravated by having the “N” word used against them, and they were, in the first place, taking a stand against the hanging of three nooses from a tree on the lawn in front of their high school.
PA: What are the specific demands put forward by the marchers?
TW: There are a number of demands. I think the clearest demand is “Free the Jena 6,” to drop all charges against these six young men and to restore or begin to establish equal justice under law. At the march there were many signs saying, “Enough is enough!” Very clearly the African American people in this country have reached a boiling point concerning the glaring inequality in the criminal justice system. There is a double standard. African American youth, especially the young men, are treated one way and whites are treated another way. Many people that I interviewed spoke about the things that that the white youths did that led to the this justified response. One white youth, for example, came to school with a loaded gun. They confiscated the gun and gave him a slap on the wrist, and then they hushed it up. But here we have six African American youth who were reacting to nooses hanging from a tree, a deadly threat to the safety of African Americans, a frightening reminder of lynch law in the South. But when they took a stand against it, they were pilloried. What occurred was such as a clear travesty, and people are just not going to take it anymore.
PA: Did you get a sense of the presence of organized labor at the march?
TW: The American Postal Workers Union was there. I saw them marching as a contingent. But also, many of the people I interviewed turned out to be workers. For example, Linda Smith, a young white woman I interviewed works as an electrician at the Ingalls Shipyard in Mississippi. I interviewed another young man from Columbia, SC, and when I asked him what he did for a living, he said, “I’m a steelworker.” He said he’d been fired from the Owen Steel Mill in Columbia, South Carolina for having spoken out against the sweatshop-like conditions in the mill. He’s now working for another steel company. I spoke with the president of the NAACP in Lafourche Parish Louisiana. He had come with a busload from Thibodaux, Louisiana. When I asked him what he did for a living, he said, “I’m a carpenter; I’m working to rebuild houses in the lower 9th Ward in New Orleans. So it was very clear that a very high percentage of the people there were workers and undoubtedly a number of them union workers, but also, of course, in the South, where unions are under attack, many of the workers in the march were not in unions, but they were definitely sympathetic to unions.
PA: Earlier this year, we saw a huge right-wing media campaign against a district attorney in North Carolina who prosecuted three white college students who were involved in an incident – the Duke lacrosse case. They wanted this guy’s head because he was an over-zealous prosecutor. What kind of response are we seeing in the media to the Jena 6 case?
TW: It’s interesting you ask that. I was talking with some people at the march who had come in from North Carolina, and one of them brought the Duke lacrosse case up as another example of the double standard – that they went after a prosecutor who was prosecuting some white fraternity boys who were involved in a very suspicious incident. This fellow said that he didn’t know if the young woman was raped or not, but he did say, just looking at the situation the way it was – that here were some white fraternity boys hiring a stripper – that in itself was suspect. But in Jena there we have a case where the prosecution is going wild over six young men who took a stand against racism in their school, and those young men are being pilloried. And the media was very quiet about it – there was hardly anything on that score.
Although I must say I was very impressed with media outpouring at the march in Jena. Right across from the Lasalle Parish courthouse an entire parking lot was packed with satellite trucks to beam this story out around the country and around the world. So I’m glad they were there and glad and that people were focusing on this event, because I think it has become so brazen and so blatant, the injustice that exists, and that it really has now become a burning issue. I think it is so outrageous that even though a Louisiana appeals court has overturned Michal Bell’s conviction, he is still in jail. People were fuming over that. How can that be? Here an appeals court has overturned the conviction, and the judge says he’s still going to stay in jail. What kind of justice is that? That is just completely outrageous. People were also saying at the march that the only reason this case is on people’s minds is because of the media focus in it. But there are 10,000 other cases of young African American men being railroaded to [jail], many of them later found innocent on the basis of DNA evidence, etc. and we know nothing about it, because it just doesn’t make it into the media. I really think the case of the Jena Six is like a shot heard around the world. I also think we have not seen the end of this case. The challenge is for progressives to build racial unity and to bring out white people to join in the protests. I interviewed several young white women at the march. I think it was noteworthy that among the white people who did come out, all the ones that I interviewed were young white women, who just saw the simple injustice of this case and said that they had to do something about it, and it was also noteworthy that all of them were from the South.
PA: A lot of Southern people are getting nervous about the focus on the South again, and they are pointing out, I think correctly, that this isn’t just a Southern problem. Do you have a comment on that?
TW: Oh definitely. First of all, the last cases in which the attention of the nation and the world was focused on racist injustice in this country in such a dramatic way were Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima in New York City. They were the victims of terrible, genocidal violence, one shot down in a hail of 41 bullets, and the other sodomized in a police station by police officers. So this is not just the South. This is a nationwide problem, and we have to take action to stop it. It is absolutely crucial to turning this country around and turning it in a progressive direction – to fight back and defeat this creeping racist offensive we are seeing against Black youth. Of course, there is also the anti-immigrant movement, all the immigrant bashing, which is another form of this attempt to split and divide us. There were many people I interviewed there in Jena who were calling for unity against racism, and they really need white people to join in this fightback. I think it is our duty to respond to that call.
