Many people today don’t know what Jena 6 is and quite frankly that’s a shame. It is a subject that most newspapers and news channels wanted to ignore. In Jena, Louisiana six black students, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, and Robert Bailey, Jr., allegedly ambushed Justin Barker a white student.
10% black students, and 85% white students inhabited Jena High School. At lunchtime white students would sit under a tree eventually called the “white tree” and black students would sit on the bleachers near the auditorium. A black student asked the principal if he could sit under the white tree. The principal said you could sit wherever you wanted so they did. The next day three nooses were hung on the tree. After the principal discovered that it was three white students that committed the crime, the principal wanted to expel them. The board of education overruled that action and
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The BACC Rag 