Jena 6: Where Do We Go from Here

1
Jena 6 Where Do We Go from Here?

• Co-sponsored and convened by
• COE Deans Council on Diversity
• The Counseling Psychology Student Association
• The UGA School Counselors Association
• The UGA Student Personnel Association
• Power point prepared by Lisa Sims Browning

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Historical Significance of Lynching
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An Initial Point

• African-American students had to ask permission
  to sit under a tree that was on school grounds
  that receives federal funds.
• After which, students hung nooses from the tree
  in retaliation to the African-Americans for
  sitting under the tree.
• Students who hung the nooses were initially
  expelled but later was only suspended for three
  days because the superintendent considered the
  hanging of the nooses as a prank.

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Historical Significance

• Jena Six Case is a blatant reminder of Jim Crow
• Was a part of American life from 1870 until the
  mid 1960s.
• Plessy vs. Ferguson upheld Jim Crow stating that
  separate was equal
• Brown vs. Board of Education repealed Jim Crow.
• Although the law was repealed in 1954, Jim Crow
  practices still lingered in the Deep South
  afterwards.

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Jim Crow Law and Etiquette in Action

• http//www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/what.htm

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Emmitt Till

• An example of how lynching was used to intimidate
  Blacks
• Emmitt Till was from Chicago and had went to
  Mississippi to visit his aunt and uncle
• Case received national attention because his body
  was pictured in Jet Magazine

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The Noose

• Used as an intimidation tactic
• Whites were able to use the noose to keep blacks
  and other people of color in their place so
  the would follow Jim Crow laws and etiquette.
• Horrible part of American History

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Jena Six Timetable of Events
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Updates on the Jena 6 Case
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Current Events Stemming from Jena Six

• Manhattan Post Office
• Columbia Teachers College
• Hempstead Police Department in Long Island
• Chicago construction site
• Queens, New York
• University of Maryland in College Park
• Coast Guard Cutter
• In Pittsburgh in a bus maintenance garage

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What people are saying and doing about it

• Are all of these cases copycats because of
  media attention?
• Cases are NOT pranks.
• The noose is a sign of hate.
• NAACP hosting a six hour workshop, Educating
  Children of Color
• Legacy of hatred, legacy of racism, legacy of
  terrorism.

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Where do WE go from here?
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Small Groups

• In small groups
• Reflect on what you just heard and/or your
  thoughts and reaction to the situation as it has
  been unfolding in Jena.
• How and where does this happen here inn our
  community, at UGA, in our college?
• Examine what action steps we can take here in
  light of what has happened in Jena. How can we
  come together as a community to ensure this does
  not happen here?

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Whole group discussion

• How can we come together as a community to ensure
  this does not happen here?
• What can we do as a community (student, faculty,
  staff, college, university)?
• Actions? Specifics?

15

• This is  a found poem from a sermon Martin
  Luther King, Jr. preached in 1957 at Dexter
  Avenue Baptist Church
• Another way that you love your enemy is
  this  When the opportunity presents itself for
  you to defeat your enemy,that is the time which
  you must not do it.
• There will come a time, in many instances,when
  the person who hates you most,the person who has
  misused you most,the person who has gossiped
  about you most,the person who has spread false
  rumors about you most,there will come a time
  whenyou will have an opportunity to defeat that
  person.
• It might be in terms of a recommendation for a
  jobit might be in terms of helping that
  personto make some move in life.That's the time
  you must do it.That is the meaning of love.In
  the final analysis,love is not this sentimental
  something that we talk about.
• It's not merely an emotional something.Love is
  creative, understanding goodwill for all men.It
  is the refusal to defeat any individual.
• When you rise to the level of love, of its great
  beauty and power,you seek only to defeat evil
  systems.Individuals who happen to be caught up
  in that system, you love,but you seek to defeat
  the system.
• Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1957
• http//www.mlkonline.net/enemies.html