Students Rising Up in SF and East Bay to Support the Jena 6 in Louisiana

Incredible photos by Felix of the Revolutionary Worker which capture the militancy of students from Berkeley High School and San Francisco schools yesterday who joined the more than 60,000 in Jena, Louisiana and hundreds of thousands around the country to demand justice for the Jena 6. See the Teachers for Social Justice, NYCORE, and T4SJ Chicago lesson plans for teachers and students on the Jena 6 and the struggle for racial justice in the US.

See/hear/view also the independent media coverage at Indybay.org and Democracy Now.

Over 20,000 people from across the country gathered in Jena, Louisiana on Thursday, September 20th, from across the country to protest the pending charges against six African American high school students (Protest Details). The six students were charged with felonies after a fight that started after nooses were hung outside their high school. Protests were also held in cities across the United States. At UC Berkeley, over 1,000 protesters gathered in Sproul Plaza at 12pm. In San Francisco, over 200 people rallied at Powell and Market.
Last week the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of 17 year old Mychal Bell. The court ruled that he should not have been tried as an adult. Bell was supposed to have been sentenced for attempted second-degree battery this Thursday.
Mychal Bell and five other students were arrested for beating a white student during a schoolyard fight last year. The fight occurred after white students hung three nooses on a tree in the schoolyard. Bell has been jailed since January unable to meet his $90,000 bond. As of this morning he remains in prison waiting for his new bond to be posted. The District Attorney plans to appeal Bell's overturned conviction at the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Felix's photos from UC Berkeley and San Francisco protests.