Jena 6: Six Black Men Face Up to 100 Years Prison Time

White Students Hang Three Nooses from a Whites Only Tree

Eighty percent White and 20% Black students at LaSalle high school arrived to find three hangman's nooses in a courtyard on an alleged Whites-only tree. Now talk about a history lesson before the bell rang! Was all of the fighting both Black and White people have done to eliminate racism going right down the drain? Has equality never quite made it to Jena, Louisiana?

Out of 460 students total, only 85 are black, and the racial tension between the two groups is more than obvious. Jena, Louisiana has 3,000 residents and is obviously a very small, segregated town, but even I thought we'd passed the days of Whites-only locations. Apparently a tree by the schoolyard had been Whites only and a regular spot for White students to rest under the shade. Last September, a few Black students challenged that tree and asked school administrators could they sit under it too. The administrators told them that they could rest anywhere they wanted and sure enough, the next day, that's when the nooses (in the school's colors) were set up to greet these Black students. Three high school students were identified to be the culprits in this hate crime and a high school principal recommended that they be expelled. Roy Breithaupt, a White school superintendent, was against that idea though. He claimed that the nooses were just a juvenile stunt and instead suspended the boys for three days but no further punishment was given.