The small Louisiana town of Jena will be on the minds of Baltimore?s black community today as three rallies will be held in the city to protest the prosecution of six black teenagers known as “the Jena 6.”
Coppin State University students will gather in front of the Paulette A. Moore Library at noon, while Morgan State University will hold a protest on campus at 11 a.m. Later, city residents will join the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at New Shiloh Baptist Church at 7 p.m. to take part in a nationwide protest.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, meanwhile, is leading a rally today in Jena, where thousands of people are expected to converge.
“This has been an injustice against these young people from the start, the school dropped the ball, the prosecutors have dropped the ball, it?s like one injustice after [another],” said Baltimore NAACP chapter President Marvin “Doc” Cheatham.
The teenagers were charged with beating up a white boy in a dispute over a tree outside Jena High School deemed for “whites only” after a noose was hung from its branches. The black teenagers were later charged with attempted murder, a fact that has united Coppin?s campus in outrage, said student government President Robert Wilson.
“When we all learned about the Jena 6, we were stunned,” he said. “This is about as hot an issue as we?ve had.”
Wilson said the issue hit home at Coppin because the controversy highlights the lingering problems that black students face.
“The Jena 6 remind us while we have made some advances, we still have a long way to go,” he said.
Wilson said two Coppin students would be traveling to Jena to participate in the protest.
Cheatham, who will be joining the students at Coppin, said he hoped the plight of the six students in Jena will unite the community.
“It finally looks like the young people are waking up.”
