Sentencing in Noose Incident at Louisiana Middle School

Three men, aged 21 - 25, were sentenced today in an incident in which they sought to intimidate African American children away from attending a school in Morehouse Parish, LA. The school had recently seen increased enrollment by Black students because of a new busing policy.

In other news, the FBI has reportedly also joined in an investigation of a potential hate crime in Washington Parish.

More info on the sentencing in Morehouse is in the Justice Department press release, reprinted here:

The Department of Justice announced today that three men were sentenced for a federal hate crime stemming from an incident that took place at Beekman Junior High School in Beekman, Morehouse Parish, La. U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Hayes sentenced James Lee Wallis Jr. to eight months in prison, Tony L. Johnson to six months in prison and Brian Wallis to five months in prison. All three defendants will also receive one year of supervised release and must attend a cultural diversity and sensitivity program.

On Aug. 12, 2011, defendant Johnson pleaded guilty to intentionally attempting to intimidate and interfere with African-American students who were attending Beekman Junior High School. Brothers Brian Wallis, 21, and James Lee Wallis Jr., 25, pleaded guilty to the same offense on Sept. 2, 2011. During their respective plea hearings, all three defendants admitted that they hung a dead raccoon in a noose from a flagpole located in front of Beekman Junior High School. They each further admitted that they were angered by the school’s new busing policy, which had increased the number of African-American children attending the school, and that they wanted to scare the African-American children into leaving the school.

“Every child, regardless of race, is entitled to an education free from intimidation or discrimination,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “Unfortunately, acts of hate such as this one are all too common in this country in 2012. The Justice Department will continue to enforce our nation’s civil rights laws in order to protect the most vulnerable in our society.”

“There is no place in our schools for this kind of intimidation,” said Stephanie A. Finley, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. “Every child has the right to an education and to feel safe in school. I hope this case sends a message that this type of activity will not be taken lightly.”

This case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Senior Litigation Counsel Mark Blumberg and Trial Attorney Christine M. Siscaretti of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary J. Mudrick for the Western District of Louisiana.

Possible MLK Day Hate Crime Against Civil Rights Family in Washington Parish

Family member had been founder of Bogalusa chapter of the Deacons for Defense and Justice

The following article was originally published by journalist Pete Tucker at TheFightBack.org:

Growing up in a civil rights family in Bogalusa, Louisiana, Chuck Hicks remembers the constant threats. “We were a marked family,” he told TheFightBack in an extended interview on the eve of the October dedication of the MLK Memorial. It turns out, Hicks’ use of the past tense may have been wishful thinking.

Around 3 a.m. on Jan. 16, Barbara Hicks Collins, Chuck’s sister, heard a loud knock. She opened the door only to find no one there and her Mercedes Benz in flames. It appears an attempt was also made to burn down the family home, where Collins and her 82-year-old mother, Valeria Hicks, live.

“It’s a suspicious fire,” State Fire Marshall Butch Browning told TheFightBack. “Hate crime is a possible motive,” he said, noting the timing of the fire which occurred on MLK Day. Browning said his office’s investigation of the incident is ongoing and is being done in coordination with the local police and FBI.

Washington Parish’s The Daily News noted that the investigation “uncover[ed] a small burned hole on the roof of the house and an apparent trail of accelerant leading from the ground below it to the car.”
After the Hicks’ home burned down in 2007 – due to an undetermined cause – the family installed fire-resistant shingles, which Collins called “a good investment.” “We are just wondering whether there’s a connection between this fire and that fire,” Collins toldTheFightBack.

In typical Hicks fashion, Valeria Hicks refused to let the incident slow her down. As investigators examined the car and house on the morning of Jan. 16, Ms. Hicks took part in an MLK parade, where she was honored, Collins said.

Ms. Hicks’ late husband, Robert Hicks, possessed a similar tenacity. He founded the Bogalusa chapter of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a group whose members carried weapons in order to fend off attacks from the Ku Klux Klan.

But “his role in the civil rights movement went beyond armed defense in a corner of the Jim Crow South,” The New York Times noted in a 2010 obituary. “He led daily protests month after month in Bogalusa – then a town of 23,000, of whom 9,000 were black – to demand rights guaranteed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act.”

Whereas the Deacons used guns to fend off would-be attackers, now the weapon of social media must be utilized, Chuck Hicks said in a video message posted on YouTube. By spreading the word far and wide “we can ensure that protection is given to my family, as well as a thorough investigation,” Hicks said.

“I’m afraid. Very afraid,” Collins said. “There’s a possibility that they could come back and try again. That’s why we’re trying to reach out.”

Photo: The Hicks family's car. Photo courtesy of The Daily News.

Casualties of Hate – Remembering Birmingham Sunday, by Jaribu Hill

Sunday, September 15, 1963, was the Lord’s Day. It was a time for worship and thanksgiving—a time to rise early—put on Sunday’s best and head to the sanctuary.

When organized hate mongers bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church, Cynthia Wesley, Carol Robertson, Denise McNair and Addie Mae Collins were getting ready for Sunday school and practicing for the church play. They were giggling and teasing each other about “usual” girl-child things. They planned to be best friends through adolescence, graduation, college and beyond. The deadly act of cowards who walked free with impunity for decades after committing the heartless deed, devastated an already embattled community and sent a message to all those who dared to stand against a status quo that sanctioned the killing of innocent children. As songwriter Richard Farina wrote:

On Birmingham Sunday, a noise shook the ground
And people all over the earth turned around.
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

The murderers of Cynthia, Carole, Denise and Addie Mae, were protected by a vicious state’s rights system that covered up these and other racially motivated deaths at the hands of known persons.

It was a back-in-the-day crime that resonates today. It resonates today as we demand justice for twenty-first century victims of the same hatred that killed the Four Little Girls. We must remember these young martyrs by vowing never to rest until all those responsible for the death of James C. Anderson, who was killed in Jackson, Mississippi on June 26, 2011 by a vehicle driven by modern day night riders, looking for a Black life to claim, are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We can accept nothing less! We must insist that a Black life has the same value as that of a white life. We must lift the veil of denial and become part of the solution that will once and for all put an end to such acts of racial hatred.

As we remember the Four Little Girls, we also must demand answers that will solve the mystery shrouding the death of Frederick Jermaine Carter, whose body was found hanging from a tree on December 3, 2010 in Leflore County, Mississippi. We can no longer remain in the safety zone.

We, who are the beneficiaries of the opportunities denied so many, must come out of our comfort zones and use our inquiring minds and influence to question how such events can occur today, despite the distance we have come. For the sake of our children and all the “Four Little Girls” and Boys to come, we must challenge structures and institutions that continue to exclude the majority to enrich the minority.

Remembering this day and celebrating the lives of Cynthia, Carole, Denise and Addie Mae, should propel us into action. It should make us work harder to dismantle all of the 21st Century separate-but-equal schemes that deny millions of children their constitutional right to equal access to a quality education. It should make us work harder to level the playing field for those who despite this country’s wealth, are caught in a web of grinding and unrelenting poverty.

To survive the onslaught of contemporary forms of injustice, we must demand ACCOUNTABILITY from all those elected to improve the quality of our lives. No longer can we accept their silence and inaction. Now is the time to demand more. Now is the time.

On this day, when our hearts are so heavy, we must renew our resolve to fight the good fight until the job is done! Remember the martyrs and fight for the living! Shame on us, if we don’t.

Jaribu Hill, Executive Director of The Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights is a civil rights attorney. The Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights was founded in 1996 in Oxford, MS to provide education, advocacy and organizing support for low-wage workers and other victims of civil and human rights violations in the workplace. Ms. Hill is the former Director of the Southern Regional Office of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Louisiana Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Charges Related to Hate Crime

From a US Department of Justice Press Release:
The Justice Department announced yesterday that Johnny Mathis, 47, of Lecompte, La., pleaded guilty to two federal crimes for shooting at the home of three Hispanic men living across the street from him because of the victims’ race and national origin.

Mathis pleaded guilty to criminal interference with the right to fair housing and using a firearm during a crime of violence. Mathis admitted that, on June 15, 2008, he shot at the victims’ home because the victims were Mexican. When the defendant began shooting at their home, the victims fled into the woods behind their residence. Mathis then entered the home with his firearm. All three victims survived the shooting unharmed.

“The defendant targeted his neighbors with violence because of their race and national origin,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “Acts of violence like this one have no place in our country, and the department will vigorously prosecute those who engage in such conduct.”

“Everyone, regardless of race, national origin or religion, etc., has the right to feel secure in their homes and free from violence,” said U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana Stephanie A. Finley. “That’s pretty basic. Our office will protect that right for all people residing in this district and will continue to prosecute these types of crimes.”

Sentencing is scheduled for July 28, 2011. Mathis faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both, on the fair housing charge. He also faces a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison for the firearm charge, which must run consecutively to any term imposed on the fair housing charge.

The case was investigated by the FBI. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Mudrick of the Western District of Louisiana and by Nicole Lee Ndumele, a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

Young Athlete Badly Beaten in Hate Crime in Morgan City Area

Blair Irvin is an aspiring professional athlete from the small Louisiana town of Patterson, near Morgan City on the Gulf Coast. He believed that racial divides in our society were mostly a thing of the past. But that changed on August 14, when he was badly beaten outside an all-white bar not far from his home, by attackers who shouted racial epithets at him as they beat him, while a crowd of at least thirty people watched.

Irvin had gone to a mostly white college – Kansas State University – and his ex-wife and much of his social circle is white. On August 14, according to Irvin, a white woman who he had met two weeks before, named Denise Aucoin, called him from a nearby bar named Charlene’s Roadhouse and asked if he would give her a ride home. Irvin was a bit confused as to why she called him, but he agreed to come. Irvin says it now seems clear that he was set up – that they invited him to the bar specifically to beat him.

When he got to the bar, he found Aucoin with her brother and a friend, and told her it appeared that she didn’t need a ride. Irvin left, but Aucoin and her friends followed him out. As a crowd gathered to watch – including Charlene Estay, the owner of the bar – Aucoin and her friend Bengie Lafleur and brother Robert Taylor savagely beat Irvin, breaking his jaw in two places. As they beat him, Irvin says Aucoin, Lafleur and Taylor yelled racial epithets at him, telling him that “(N-word)‘s don’t belong here,” and bragging that they had “whipped the Black off your ass.”

None of the onlookers, including the bar owner, called the police. “I almost died out there,” he says. “They left me for dead.”

Irvin says he still feels traumatized. He says he has lost 15 pounds since the incident, and has regular dizzy spells. The nature of his injuries have shattered his hopes of a career in sports – he cancelled an upcoming tryout with the Florida Tuskers, a UFL team based in Orlando. Irvin also complains of fears as he goes about his day. “I can't walk in a store without getting scared by people walking behind me,” he says.

On August 18, Aucoin, Lafleur and Taylor were arrested and charged with second-degree battery and hate crimes. Their bonds were set at $150,000 each. Employees reached by phone at Charlene’s Roadhouse refused comment.

Pictured above: Top: Blair Irvin. Left: Bar owner Charlene Estay.