Friday, March 30, 2012

Free online link to Mississippi civil rights history book (with chapter on Emmett Till) given out by author of Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited

The author of three books on Mississippi Civil Rights, today posted a free link to her largest work, Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited.


"I've received numerous calls since the Trayvon Martin incident, from civil rights reporters and others asking me questions that relate to the Emmett Till murder in 1955. Till's death was critical to the advancement of the civil rights movement back then, and it is a history that every person in this country should know--not just African Americans," Susan Klopfer said.


Klopfer said she is encouraged by the sudden interest in this historical topic, particularly in relationship to the Trayvon Martin murder. 


"I was angered by the movie, The Help, because it white washed what really took place back in the 1950s and 60s. The times were far more brutal and Greenwood, Mississippi was the home of beatings and murder of numerous black Mississippians. The movie also asserts that black people were 'taken by the hand' by white people to initiate change. That is just not true; history is filled with countless stories of brave African Americans who risked their lives to overcome racism and discrimination, and to make change happen.


"It is unfortunate when real history is not told; people who saw The Help left the movie houses with an inaccurate portrayal of what racism was like and how it affected the entire community."


Klopfer said she hopes readers of history find her free link to Where Rebels Roost an opportunity to understand the context of Emmett Till's lynching. "There are many similarities and many differences between these two murders. Once a reader takes a look at this book, I am sure they will better understand what is going on now in Florida and with the Martin case."


Here is the online link to Klopfer's free book:

http://themiddleoftheinternet.com/OnlineBooks/Rebels/index.html


On her website, www.themiddleoftheinternet listing Klopfer's various books, a description of Where Rebels Roost states the following:


After 23 months of research and writing, while living in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, Where Rebels Roost features:


--A Nine-page Selected Bibliography/Citations: 73 Books; 3 Dissertations; 47 Articles; 32 Collections, Interviews, Oral Histories


--Twenty-pages/Lists of Dead/References 900+ names and information of African Americans lynched and murdered in Mississippi from 1870 to 1970 (references Southern Law & Poverty Center, NAACP, Tuskegee Institute, individual family and friends, personal research)


--Sixteen-page/160+ Names of Emmett Till Principles/Names and biographies of people close to this case, from lawyers, witnesses, judges and jurors to police, politicians, friends and families.


--And over one hundred specific Sovereignty Commission Documents, cited with references given (plus over 1,000 footnotes!)


But more important are the stories of some very unique, persevering and brave people – stories that deserve to be told. I hope you enjoy this read as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Who should read this book? Genealogists, historians, history buffs, teachers, students, civil rights activists and followers, anyone who loves a fascinating story.
    " ... an absorbing and substantial work that speaks in many provocative ways ..."  Lois Brown, director of the Weissman Center for Leadership and Liberal Arts, Mount Holyoke College 
    "Susan Klopfer is determined to tell the truth about Mississippi and about America ... Klopfer follows the money, showing how the lines of culpability lead into the offices of New York industrialist Wycliffe Draper, whose Pioneer Fund fueled Mississippi’s fight against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and provided millions of dollars for the private academies, established to keep white children out of integrated schools after Brown v. Board of Ed. (More recently, the Pioneer Fund financed the research for the controversial book, The Bell Curve, a best selling, racist tract published in 1994.)"  Ben Greenberg, poet, essayist and activist and author of the blog Hungry Blues

Friday, March 23, 2012

More Calls For Justice in Trayvon Martin Case; NOW Takes a Stand


Contact: Latoya Veal, 202-628-8669, ext. 116

NOW Calls for Justice in Trayvon Martin Case: Fire the Chief,
Arrest the Shooter, and Repeal 'Stand Your Ground' Laws
Statement of NOW President Terry O'Neill


March 23, 2012

The National Organization for Women is shocked and saddened by the tragic death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, the African-American teenager shot and killed while walking home from a convenience store in Sanford, Florida. Unarmed, Trayvon was carrying a bag of candy and an iced tea when he was gunned down near his father's home by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman in a gated community.

We are appalled by how poorly this case has been handled by local authorities in Sanford. It has now been almost four weeks since Martin's death, and the shooter, George Zimmerman, is still walking free. Police Chief Bill Lee's self-imposed temporary leave of absence is not enough. The authorities in Sanford need to fire the chief and arrest and prosecute the shooter.
NOW stands with Trayvon's mother, Sybrina Fulton, his father, Tracy Martin, and other family and supporters in calling for justice in this senseless crime. We also join our Florida NOW chapter and the organization's National Combating Racism Committee in urging every law enforcement agency involved, including the Justice Department, to conduct a complete and fair investigation of an incident that bears all the hallmarks of a hate crime.

NOW also calls for repeal of the controversial 'Stand Your Ground Laws' before another life is taken in the name of vigilantism. Enacted in 2005, the Florida law allows individuals to use deadly force anywhere against anyone they believe is a 'threat' to their life. Some 20 other states in the U.S. have similarly broad laws that are, essentially, a license to kill.

No mother should have to lose a child, especially to such horrible violence. NOW will continue to work with allied organizations to change police practices, politically-motivated laws and social attitudes that put too many African-American teens at risk for the "crime" of walking while young and black.

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Thursday, March 22, 2012

"I could seriously tell you off" -- A discussion of parental fear and Trayvon Martin's Murder in Florida

AS PUBLISHER of this social justice blog, and as a civil rights author and speaker, I want to share several of my impressions with readers about the Trayvon Martin murder in Florida.

I lived in Mississippi for several years, where I wrote about numerous murders in the Delta. Because of this experience, I am particularly troubled that many media commentators just don't "get it," the fact that parents of African American children must constantly face great fear because their children are often in real danger.

Not too long ago, and then again this morning, as the news of Martin's murder was discussed, I heard several usually competent news reporters state they "thought those days were over." If they would only take a sociology class, read a few books, listen to African American leaders, they would well understand "those days" have not passed, and will not pass until we get some serious national discussion gets going.

Meanwhile, here is a blog post I have to offer, from my personal experiences of living and writing in the Mississippi Delta several years ago.

Susan Klopfer

* * *


“If this was the 1960s, I would seriously be telling you off,” Margaret said, drawing deeply from her cigarette, and staring coldly at me. We didn’t go anywhere after 5 p.m. back then, and I still follow the same rule today.”  


DO THOSE OF US who are not African American truly understand the intensity of fear that faces so many parents of black children, especially young males, following the Florida murder of young Trayvon Martin? A civil rights history lesson and a quick telling of a personal incident might help...

It can be said that probably most African American families know the story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago student who back in the summer of 1955 was tortured and murdered in a small tool shed located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.

The two angry, white men who killed Emmett alleged he whistled at a white woman, one of their wives, who at the time was watching over the family grocery store while her husband was out of town. Till entered the small Delta store on the main street of Money, a tiny cotton hamlet, with his cousin and bought a piece of candy. Then Till apparently annoyed this woman, and three days later her husband and his friend tracked Till down.

They kidnapped the young Delta visitor from his uncle’s house, driving him into the next county where they beat him for hours, and then shot him before tossing his corpse into a nearby river. Both men were acquitted a month later, and some historians are now saying that Emmett Till’s murder was the spark that drove the modern civil rights movement. Rosa Parks later wrote that she decided to take her stand by sitting at the front of a Montgomery city bus, after hearing that Till’s murderers were set free. Parks had already planned her move, but was looking for the right time.

The murder of Emmett Till was the first media event of the modern Civil Rights Movement, demonstrating the horrors of racism in a news story circulated throughout America and around the world. African Americans clearly understood they were under attack, that no black male in the South was safe. 


FOR YEARS AFTER TILL'S MURDER, the story of his lynching was regularly told to young black children by their parents as a cautionary tale, a way of keeping African American youngsters from experiencing the same event.

“Don’t go out at night by yourself – or even with others; say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no ma’am’ when addressing white folk; look down when you come upon a white person in your path, step into the street if you have to, rather than use the sidewalk,” black children were warned.

However, the last warning was chilling: “If you don’t do what we say, you could end up like Emmett Till.”

A friend of mine, Margaret Block, who first told me the Till story, also accompanied me as we roamed around the Delta back in 2003. I began research for a book I wrote two years later, Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited, hoping my book would represent a new look at the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement from the time that enslaved Africans arrived in Mississippi through 2005 as criminal cases and trials continued.

I met Margaret after my husband took a job as the state’s chief psychologist for state-run prisons, landing us in red brick living quarters on the grounds of an infamous Delta prison, Parchman Penitentiary. As a former journalist, I was quickly fascinated with this northwestern Mississippi region, its steaming black soil and small white churches that edged the cotton fields, and of course, its civil rights history.

I actually knew very little about this last topic and quickly began reading every book that I could find on the Delta region. Margaret came my way at the suggestion of a woman from the small town of Drew, this woman was once the secretary of a murdered civil rights lawyer, also from Drew, and she knew about Margaret’s civil rights history.

-----
"Margaret took me around the Delta to meet people and see significant sites. She had but one rule: we do not go out after 5 p.m. I thought that was a little suspicious, perhaps bordering on paranoia. This was 2003 and we were talking about an event that occurred nearly 50 years ago. Surely, two women – one white and one black – could now be safe going out as the sun goes down."
-----


This tiny, retired teacher lived 11 miles away from Drew, and I drove over one day to meet her and to learn more about her brother, Sam, a bold early voting rights advocate. Both brother and sister were several of the first members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC that came into Mississippi in 1963. SNCC's major contribution was in its fieldwork, organizing voter registration drives all over the South, especially in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi – something that Sam Block had already been courageously doing with several other brave friends in Greenwood, a particularly vicious community where it was nothing for police officers to sic biting dogs on civil rights marchers. 


Sam once gained national press by riding through Greenwood on a mule, handing out voter registration cards. Interestingly, this violent town would later take on a less formidable face as filming site of The Help. Greenwood was not portrayed in the movie as Margaret and other advocates would testify today.


We traveled together around the Delta to meet people and see significant sites. She had but one rule: we do not go out after 5 p.m. I thought that was a little suspicious, perhaps bordering on paranoia. This was 2003 and we were talking about an event that occurred nearly 50 years ago. Surely, two women – one white and one black – could now be safe going out as the sun goes down. Margaret stuck to her guns and one evening at about 7 p.m., when we avoided her 5 p.m. rule, she seriously made her point.

IT WAS DUSK when we dropped in on Glendora, a small cotton town in Tallahatchie County, near the site where Emmett Till’s body was tied to a gin fan and thrown into the Tallahatchie River after he was tortured and killed; we were trying to find the old home of one of the killers.

 “If this was the 1960s, I would seriously be telling you off,” Margaret said, drawing deeply off her cigarette, and staring coldly at me. We didn’t go anywhere after 5 p.m. back then, and I still follow the same rule today.”

We he driven earlier in the day to Charleston, a hilly spot above the Delta’s cotton fields where we spent a long day going to the old courthouse; Margaret was nearly stabbed by a Klansman with a knife on those steps, back in 1963. A nearby FBI agent fortunately stopped the attack, catching the knife and taking it away. She was lucky, because agents were instructed not to get involved physically in such situations. Margaret, a young SNCC volunteer, was swished away in the back of a funeral home hearse, and taken to a private home in the country where she stayed for a few months, along with Stokely Carmichael who was sent to help organizers in Charleston. After that, Margaret left for the West Coast to go to school. She became a civil rights activist there, working as well with the early anti-Vietnam movement, too.

Margaret returned home many years later to live in her family home set on land given to relatives after the Civil War. She took up tutoring school children in her community and remains there to this day, as a beloved social and community advocate.
* * * * *

On that night in Glendora, I realized that Margaret had been quite upset earlier in Charleston, reliving the fear she felt back in the 1960s as she walked up the courthouse steps, remembering the time she could have lost her life. She had never returned to this Delta town, but agreed to go back that day because I needed her to tell me the town’s history.

THEN I VIOLATED her rule. The only thing Margaret told me before we went to Charleston was that she had to be back home by 5 p.m. I did not really take her request seriously, did not believe that she would be so fearful of the delta’s evil dusk.

We were tramping through weeds, trying to find this old house in Glendora because my friend said on the way back home she thought she could still find the old house, even though it had been abandoned for years. We made the side trip into the tiny river town of Glendora and started looking around. It was getting dark, mosquitoes were biting, and gnats were buzzing. Margaret was nervous, and finally said we definitely had to go.

We did find a skeleton of the killer's house before we got back into the car and drove off. I began to realize how insensitive I was being. This was a real fear for Margaret, this wonderful woman who was shaking and looking out ahead of the car, staring into the beam of car lights. I needed to get her home as fast as I could.

Today, after the murder of Trayvon Martin, I have a closer understanding of how my Mississippi friend must have felt. Nevertheless, I will never really get it, because I will never feel such specific terror due to my skin color.

How would I really feel today if I were a parent of black children, considering the brutal murder of young Trayvon Martin and knowing the story of Emmett Till? How deep would my fear run?

From that mosquito-biting night along the Tallahatchie River, and from today’s developing news, I recognize that I have absolutely no comprehension at all of what it is like to live with such internal and ongoing fear because of the color of my child's skin.

My friend gave me an ounce of understanding.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Some Good News Out of D.C.; Senators Harkin, Grassley, Leahy Trying To Change 2009 Supreme Court Decision that Makes Age Discrimination Tough To Prove


Washington D.C. Employment Law Update

Bill Would Change Burden of Proof, Causation Standards in ADEA, ADA Cases

On March 13, 2012, lawmakers reintroduced a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would overturn a 2009 Supreme Court decision that toughened an employee’s burden of proof in bringing a discrimination claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (POWADA) (S. 2189) introduced by Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) would explicitly reject the June 18, 2009 Supreme Court decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., which held that a plaintiff bringing a claim under the ADEA must show by a preponderance of the evidence that age was the “but for” cause of the employer’s adverse employment decision. In order to establish a viable claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, by contrast, an employee need only demonstrate that the protected category such as race or sex was acontributing factor in the adverse employment decision. In such a “mixed motive” case the burden then shifts back to the employer to show that it would have made the same decision regardless of the unlawful contributing factor.
In reversing Gross, POWADA would establish that when an employee shows discrimination was a “motivating factor” behind a decision, the burden shifts back to the employer to show it complied with the law. Specifically, the bill states that to establish claims under the ADEA, complainants are not required to demonstrate that age was the sole cause of the employment practice.
In a press release, Sen. Harkin said:
Prior to the Court’s decision in Gross, the same standard of proof applied equally to all workers, regardless of the type of invidious discrimination they faced. Ignoring these consistent standards, the Court’s decision established a far higher standard of proof for age than for discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion, without any rationale or justification. The Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act will reverse the Court’s decision and restore the law to what it was for decades so that Jack Gross and all older workers in this country enjoy the full protections of the law.
Sen. Grassley echoed this sentiment, stating:
The decision in the Gross case has had a major impact on employment discrimination litigation across the country. It’s time we clarify the law to ensure that other people like Jack Gross aren’t put in similar situations. Older Americans have immense value to our society and our economy and they deserve the protections Congress originally intended.
Similar versions of this measure were introduced in 2009 in both the House and Senate, and were the subject to two congressional hearings in 2010. Despite the apparent interest in this legislation, it failed to advance. The current version of the bill deleted language stating that this framework applies to all federal anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation laws. However, the new version of the legislation expressly states that this standard of proof also applies to Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Unlike prior versions, the reintroduced bill does not apply retroactively, but only applies to claims pending on or after the date of enactment. The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP).
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Monday, March 19, 2012

Sanford, Florida Black Teen Gunned Down by Neighbor; Police Look Other Way


News Release
For Information, Contact
ColorOfChange.org
March 19, 2012


Civil Rights Group Launches Campaign Urging the U.S. Department of Justice to Arrest Trayvon Martin's killer and Investigate the Sanford Police Department

March 19, 2012

New York, NY – Civil rights group ColorOfChange.org today launched a campaign calling on the US Department of Justice to take over the case of Trayvon Martin, arrest Martin's killer, and launch an independent investigation into the Sanford Police Department's unwillingness to protect Martin's civil rights.
In an email to members, the organization makes the case that Sanford police botched their questioning of Zimmerman, the self-appointed neighborhood watch captain who killed Martin. ColorOfChange members are now signing a petition calling on federal intervention on the grounds that Sanford police refused to take the full statements of witnesses and pressured neighbors to side with the shooter's claim of self-defense.
"The tragic killing of Trayvon Martin and subsequent mishandling of this case by Sanford police is yet another reminder that to some, simply being Black in America is a crime." said ColorOfChange Executive Director Rashad Robinson. "While the campaign for justice in this case will not bring back Trayvon, this is an opportunity for people of all races to stand with his family and families across the country who have seen the impact of a justice system that places so little values on the lives and dignity of Black people."
Sanford's police department has a history of failing to hold perpetrators accountable for violent acts against Black victims. In 2010, the son of a police officer went free after beating a Black homeless man unprovoked. Five years earlier, two security guards went unpunished after killing a Black teenager who was dropping friends off at their homes.
The State Attorney's office has rubber-stamped the Sanford police's questionable investigation, claiming that there is not enough evidence to support even a manslaughter conviction.
"The ColorOfChange community sends its deepest condolences to Trayvon's family," Robinson said. "It shouldn't be a privilege for anyone to safely buy candy and soda at their neighborhood store. It is time for the Justice Department to step in and ensure that the rule of law is applied."
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With more than 800,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation’s largest African-American online civil rights organization.





Saturday, March 17, 2012

Social Justice, Civil Rights and Retirement


A quick note to readers of this Civil Rights and Social Justice blog --

Please drop by my newest blog, The Retirement Monologues at http://retirementmonologues.com/, where I am focusing on the latest retirement issues that face many of us as we march on through life. Not financial planning (everyone else worries about that), but fun stuff like what are you going to be doing as you retire. Travel? Go fishing? Write blogs that matter?

It would be particularly interesting to comments that relate to Social Justice, Civil Rights and retirement... Any ideas??

I will be interviewing lots of people, commenting on related social and political issues, and trying to pass on some of the more unique and interesting aspects of retiring and staying engaged. If you know of someone who would make a good interviewee, please let me know.

Meanwhile, please drop by and say hello. I would love to have your comments on posts and I am always looking for contributed articles to post on this topic. I have targeted this blog  to women's issues, but hey, everyone is invited to drop by and share their thoughts.

Just finished a post, by the way, on women who are leaving the workforce to start up their own businesses because they are sick and tired of the discrimination wars. Would appreciate your comments and thoughts.

Thanks, Susan Klopfer

The Retirement Monologues

A quick Saturday announcement --


A quick note to readers of this blog -- you are invited to drop by my newest blog, The Retirement Monologues at http://retirementmonologues.com/, where I am focusing on the latest retirement issues that face many of us as we march on through life. Not financial planning (everyone else worries about that), but fun stuff like what are you going to be doing as you retire. Travel? Go fishing? Write blogs that matter?

Maybe you are going to keep working, maybe you are going to start up a new business in your basement...well, you get the idea. My husband and I are starting into these years by working on our own. No more going to the office and working for someone else.

We're finding that working for ourselves will hopefully extend the years we work -- keeping our brains active and staying engaged.

I will be interviewing lots of people, commenting on related social and political issues, and trying to pass on some of the more unique and interesting aspects of retiring and staying engaged.

So please drop by and say hi. I would love to have your comments on posts and I am always looking for contributed articles to post on this topic. I have targeted this blog  to women's issues, but hey, everyone is invited to drop by and share their thoughts.

Thanks, Susan Klopfer

The Retirement Monologues

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

New Mexico Teen Kicked Out of School and Publicly Humiliated For Pregnancy; the New Scarlet Letter?


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
GALLUP, N.M. – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit today on behalf of Shantelle Hicks, 15, who was initially kicked out of middle school and then publicly humiliated at an assembly by the school director and another staff member because she was pregnant. 
The complaint alleges that school administrators violated Hicks’ constitutional right to equal protection under the law, Title IX’s prohibitions against sex and pregnancy discrimination and violations of her right to privacy. 
“It was so embarrassing to have all the other kids staring at me as I walked into the gymnasium,” said Hicks. “I didn’t want the whole school to know I was pregnant because it’s not their business, and it wasn’t right for my teachers to single me out.” 
Hicks attends Wingate Elementary School, a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school, and is currently in the eighth grade. She discovered she was pregnant approximately three weeks before the assembly, and she and her mother told the director of the middle school and two other staff members. They initially responded by kicking her out of school. The ACLU of New Mexico sent a demand letter to the school, informing them that it is illegal to deny a student access to education because of pregnancy status. Wingate readmitted Hicks after four missed days of instruction. 
Approximately two weeks later the director of the middle school and another staff member had Hicks stand before the entire middle school at an assembly and announced that she was pregnant. Until that point, no one other than Hicks’ sister knew that she was pregnant. 
“Too often, pregnant students face significant barriers or outright discrimination in school,” said Galen Sherwin, staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “Instead, schools should give pregnant and parenting students the support they need to help them succeed, for both themselves and for their children.”  
“The ACLU’s lawsuit seeks damages and declaratory relief for violations of Hicks’ constitutional right to equal protection under the law and of Title IX prohibitions against sex and pregnancy discrimination in education.” 
“We believe that Wingate intentionally humiliated Shantelle in retaliation for her refusal to leave the school,” said ACLU of New Mexico cooperating attorney Barry Klopfer. “It is outrageous that educators would subject a young woman in their care to such cruelty. Adopting one’s moral convictions from the Scarlet Letter is completely inappropriate and fails to take into account a child’s educational needs.” 
Lawyers on this case include Klopfer, Alexandra Freedman Smith, Laura Schauer Ives and Maureen Sanders of the ACLU of New Mexico; and Sherwin and Lenora Lapidus of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. 
More information about this case can be found at: www.aclu.org/womens-rights/hicks-v-edsitty-beach

Friday, March 2, 2012

Jena 6 Update: Where's the freaking media??

Do you remember reading or hearing about the Jena 6? If not, in a nutshell: six black teenagers convicted in the beating of Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana on December 4, 2006. Barker was injured in the assault and received treatment for his injuries at an emergency room. While the case was pending, it was often cited as an example of racial injustice in the United States, due to a belief that the defendants had initially been charged with too-serious offenses and had been treated unfairly.

Six individuals (Robert Bailey,17; Mychal Bell, 16; Carwin Jones, 18; Bryant Purvis, 17; Jesse Ray Beard, 14; and Theo Shaw, 17) were arrested in the assault on Barker and the case sparked protests by those viewing the arrests and subsequent charges, initially attempted second-degree murder (though later reduced), as excessive and racially discriminatory. The protesters asserted that white Jena youths involved in other incidents were treated leniently.

On September 20, 2007, between 15,000 and 20,000 protesters marched on Jena in what was described as the "largest civil rights demonstration in years". Related protests were held in other US cities on the same day. Subsequent reactions included a considerable number of editorials and opinion columns, and Congressional hearings.

* * *
You can follow this blog by email.
* * *

Now Rev. Alan Bean of Friends of Justice, a civil rights author and long-time advocate, presents a sad update. Here is an introduction to Alan's latest report:

Requiem for Catrina 

On June 29, 2009, the Jena 6 saga reached an unheralded conclusion at the LaSalle Parish courthouse.  The terms reflected DA Reed Walter’s desire to move beyond a controversy that had enveloped his existence for over two years.  Each of the five remaining defendants in this case pleaded “no contest” to a misdemeanor charge of simple battery and after completing a week of non-supervised probation their records were expunged.Two weeks later, more than 150 officers, including a SWAT team and helicopters, stormed into Jena’s small black community and arrested over a dozen individuals.
According to Sheriff Scott Franklin, the primary target of the raid was 37-year-old Darren “Nunni” DeWayne Brown, a man Franklin described as the narcotics kingpin responsible for supplying 80% of the narcotics sold in LaSalle, Grant and Catahoula parishes.  The raid also targeted Brown’s partners in crime and a few other low-level dealers.
During the pre-raid briefing, Franklin spelled out the consequences of the raid for his troops.  The bad guys “will get put in handcuffs, put behind bars today and never see the light of day again unless they are going out on the playground in prison.”
Catrina Wallace, one of the key organizers behind the Jena 6 movement, was among those arrested.  
Continue Reading.
* * *
So, where is the media coverage on this ongoing saga of racism. Thank God for Alan Bean and his organization, Friends of Justice. Please keep reading his article, and then do something...When Good Men Do Nothing...

Thanks, Susan