JENA SIX

Jena six



Jena six

I. Introduction

In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit under a "whites only" shade tree. There prevailed an accepted tenet that blacks were not allowed to sit under the tree. The next day, students arrived at school to find three nooses hanging from the tree. The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration went about it as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights were in progress at school ...