Pitzer in the News 2007-2007 Academic Year

Students protest for Louisiana's Jena Six
By Will Bigham, Staff Writer
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Published September 21, 2007

CLAREMONT - Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Jena, La., on Thursday to protest what they consider the unfairly harsh prosecution of six black teenagers who allegedly assaulted a white classmate.

Though they were nearly 2,000 miles away, about 300 students at the Claremont Colleges joined the Jena Six demonstrators in spirit Thursday afternoon in a silent protest march across the five undergraduate campuses.

Most of the students were dressed in black - as protesters were in Jena - and many held signs with anti-racism messages.

Pitzer College junior Michele Hatchette, one of the organizers, said students assembled "to take a stand, to make a statement that we don't support this, and to show that we are one in spirit with the protesters in Jena."

Jena, a rural, 85percent white town of about 3,000 that sits 230 miles northwest of New Orleans, was overwhelmed Thursday by more than 10,000 marchers.

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and other civil-rights leaders were in Louisiana for the protest.

"What we need is a federal investigation to protect people from Southern injustice," Sharpton said. "Our fathers in the 1960s had to penetrate the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, we have to do the same thing."

Racial tensions first flared in Jena last September, when a black student at Jena High School sat beneath a tree that had traditionally been a hangout for white students.

The next day, three nooses were hung from the tree. Three white students received suspensions related to the act.

In December, six black teens assaulted a white student, knocking him unconscious and leaving his face bloodied and swollen.

Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder. That charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.

"I think it's a very discriminatory charge. It's too much," said Jose Calderon, Pitzer professor of sociology and Chicano studies, who joined Thursday's silent march in Claremont. "And the other students were given a slap on the hand.

"We need to make sure the system treats everyone equal and not go back to the days when people were treated differently within the justice system simply because of the color of their skin."

At 4:15 p.m. Thursday, black-clad protesters representing a diversity of ethnic backgrounds quietly arrived in small groups to the designated meeting point at Harvey Mudd College.

By 4:30 the crowd had swelled to about 300 - exceeding estimates by organizers that 100 people would participate.

Organizers silenced the crowd, and the march commenced. Students walked first through Pitzer, then passed through the other three undergraduate universities before ending on the Pomona College campus at Honnold Library.

The case in Jena "is extremely shocking," said Shatara Ford, a junior at Pitzer. "I couldn't believe something like this could be going on.

"We tend to forget there's places like Jena, La., that have such blatant disgust for a certain group of people."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Staff writer Will Bigham can be reached by e-mail at will.bigham@dailybulletin.com, or by phone at (909) 483-8553.