Marcus Jones, Father of Jena Six Student, Killed in Truck Accident

Marcus Jones, father of Mychal Bell, one of the defendants in the Jena Six case, was killed yesterday in a highway accident, according to local news reports.

In 2007, six high school students became an international cause. Tens of thousands of people from around the US descended on Jena, a small town in northern Louisiana, to protest against racial injustice.

Six Black youth facing decades in prison over a school fight involving a white youth who had no serious injuries symbolized an unjust system in some of the same ways that today Ferguson Missouri has come to represent police abuses. The fight occurred not long after white students had left nooses under a tree in what was seen as a warning to Black students. Mychal Bell was the first (and, ultimately, only) of the six youth to face trial, he was convicted and spent nearly ten months in prison before his sentence was overturned.

Marcus Jones was a dedicated, passionate, and outspoken advocate and activist for his son and the other young men, appearing frequently on radio and TV and speaking frankly about racial dimensions of the case, calling the charges a "modern day lynching."

According to a report today in the Jena Town Talk:

A Jena man helping a friend move some wooden pallets died Saturday afternoon on La. Highway 8, according to Louisiana State Police. Marcus W. Jones, 43, died in the incident, although troopers aren't sure exactly how yet. Around 5:41 p.m., troopers responded to a crash on La. 8 after a 2007 Chevrolet pickup truck, driven by 22-year-old Brittany N. Walker of Jena, struck Jones, who was lying in the eastbound lane. Walker tried to avoid hitting Jones, who was wearing a black jacket and black pants, reads the release. A friend of Jones' arrived at the scene, telling troopers that Jones had been helping him move wooden pallets. Jones had been standing in the bed of the friend's pickup truck, holding down the pallets, according to the release. The friend said that, when he arrived at his destination, Jones no longer was in the truck. The friend had been retracing his path, searching for Jones, when he came upon the scene.

In the years since the case, the six young men who had been facing life in prison went on to various colleges, including Grambling State, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Southern University, and Hofstra. One of the youth went on to work for Southern Poverty Law Center. Mychal Bell just graduated from Southern University, days before his father's death.

Photos by Jordan Flaherty.

Conviction of Black Mayor Overturned by US Court of Appeals in Case Closely Watched by Civil Rights Activists

In a 2-1 ruling today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeal reversed the conviction of former Waterproof mayor Bobby Higginbotham, and vacated his sentence. The case had attracted the attention of civil rights activists around the US, as well as Color of Change, a national racial justice activism group, who had gathered 50,000 signatures appealing for freedom for the former mayor.

The ruling gives ammunition to defenders of Higginbotham, who said he was an innocent man being prosecuted for standing up against the white power structure of Tensas Parish and convicted in an unfair trial. However, the ruling by the court of appeals did not address the substance of the charges against Higginbotham, but focused on irregularities in the trial. The main reason cited was missing transcripts from the trial, caused by apparent problems with a sound recorder used by the court reporter. According to Higginbotham attorney Rachel Conner, there is no transcript at all for at least two witness' testimonies.

The former mayor was released from jail in December because of good behavior, but today's judgement means he is no longer on parole and no longer owes restitution. The DA has the option to appeal this ruling to a higher court.

Below is more background, from our previous reporting on the case:

Waterproof, Louisiana is a rural town near the Mississippi border best known for holding an immigration detention center. The town -- population approximately 800 -- sits in Tensas Parish, a mostly agrarian region of the state. Community members say the civil rights movement came late to Tensas -- it was the last parish in the state where Black residents were able to register to vote, and the Klan was active until late in the 20th century.

The current troubles began in September of 2006, when Higginbotham was elected mayor of Waterproof. Soon after, he appointed his associate Miles Jenkins as chief of police. Jenkins, who served in the U.S. military for 30 years and earned a master's degree in public administration from Troy University in Alabama, immediately began the work of professionalizing a small town police department that had previously been mostly inactive. While both Jenkins and Higginbotham are from Waterproof, the men had also spent much of their adult lives working in other places, and brought a professional background to their new positions. Allies of Higginbotham and Jenkins say this threatened Parish Sheriff Ricky Jones and DA James Paxton. Annie Watson, a school board member and former volunteer for the mayor, says officers working for Jones told her, "As soon as you people learn that the sheriff controls Tensas Parish, the better off you'll be."

The charges and counter charges are difficult to untangle. At the center of the case is a state audit of Waterproof that found irregularities in the town's record keeping. The Parish District Attorney says the audit shows mayoral corruption. The mayor says the problems pre-date his term, and he had taken steps to correct the issues. The mayor's opponents claim he stole from the town by illegally increasing his salary. His supporters say he received a raise that was voted on by the town aldermen. The mayor initially faced 44 charges; all but two were dropped before the trial began. Those charges -- malfeasance in office and felony theft -- were related to the disputed raise and use of the town's credit card. Miles Jenkins, the police chief, faced charges related to his enforcement of traffic tickets.

The mayor was quickly convicted of both charges but lawyers have raised challenges to the convictions, bringing a number of legal complaints. For example: in a town that is 55% African-American, Mayor Higginbotham had only one Black juror. Higginbotham's counsel was disqualified by the DA, and the public defender had a conflict of interest, leaving the mayor with no lawyer. Two days before the trial began, the DA gave Higginbotham 10 boxes of files related to his case. Higginbotham's request for an extension to get an attorney and to examine the files was denied.

There's more: during jury selection, when Higginbotham -- forced to act as his own lawyer -- tried to strike one juror who had relationships with several of the witnesses, he was told he could not, even though he had challenges remaining. There was also a problem with a sound recorder that the court reporter was using, and as a result there is no transcript at all for at least two witness' testimonies. Finally, during deliberation, the judge gave the jury polling slips that had "guilty" pre-selected, and then later hid the slips.

When Higginbotham was convicted, the judge refused to set bail in any amount. Although a possible sentence for the crime was probation, and despite the former mayor's obvious ties to the community, Higginbotham has spent the last ten months in jail while his lawyers have worked on his appeal. "He's not a flight risk," says Rachel Conner, Higginbotham's lawyer. "He's tied to Waterproof and he's got a vested interest in clearing his name."

The End of Sex Offender Registration for Louisiana Sex Workers?

Judge Rules That Sex-Offender Registration for “Crime Against Nature by Solicitation” Convictions Is Unconstitutional
From Center for Constitutional Rights:

Yesterday, one day after attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights argued that individuals convicted prior to August 2011 under Louisiana’s “Crime Against Nature by Solicitation” (CANS) law should not have to register as sex offenders, a federal judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana agreed and granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs. The statute was amended in August 2011 to no longer require those convicted of CANS to register, but the change was not made retroactive.

“The defendants fail to credibly serve up even one unique legitimating governmental interest that can rationally explain the registration requirement imposed on those convicted of Crime
Against Nature by Solicitation,” wrote Judge Martin L. C. Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. “The Court is left with no other conclusion but that the relationship between the classification is so shallow as to render the distinction wholly arbitrary.”

“Today’s decision is a powerful vindication of our clients’ right to equal protection before the law. The court has agreed that they have been singled out for this harsh treatment without a legitimate or rational purpose, and that this cannot stand,” said Alexis Agathocleous, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Previously, people accused of soliciting sex for a fee in Louisiana could be criminally charged in two ways: either under the prostitution statute or under the solicitation provision of the Crime Against Nature statute. A CANS conviction carried harsher penalties than a prostitution conviction, including the sex-offender registration requirement. Police and prosecutors had unfettered discretion in choosing which to charge. Judge Feldman’s ruling holds that the discrepancy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

“Today’s ruling is a testament to the power and importance of speaking out for justice. Individuals marginalized by the CANS law told their stories, spearheading a campaign to change the law,” said Deon Haywood, executive director of Women With A Vision, a community-based organization in New Orleans that has led advocacy efforts around this issue. “The people heard, the legislature heard, and now the courts have heard. Now we can move on to healing and renewal.”

Many of the plaintiffs in the case had been unable to secure work or housing as a result of their registration as sex offenders. Several had been barred from homeless shelters, one had been physically threatened by a neighbor, and another had been refused residential substance abuse treatment because providers will not accept registered sex offenders at their facilities.

“This is an important victory in light of the Department of Justice’s recent finding that this charge was being discriminatorily applied against poor Black women and transgender women and gay men,” said Andrea J. Ritchie, a police misconduct attorney who is co-counsel on the case. “It takes away a discriminatory tool used by police and prosecutors.”

Plaintiffs are represented by CCR, police misconduct attorney Andrea J. Ritchie, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic & Center for Social Justice, and pro bono counsel Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, LLP.

For a letter from Deon Haywood with her reaction, see this link.

Race, Gender, and Occupy By Sweta Vohra and Jordan Flaherty, Fault Lines

A version of this article originally appeared on the Al Jazeera website.

At a recent panel discussion on the Occupy movement, a left-leaning professor from New York University speculated that identity politics - the prioritizing of issues of race and gender in movements for justice - could be a plot funded by the CIA to undermine activism. While most commentators do not go this far, the idea that activists who focus on these issues are "undermining the struggle" has a long history within progressive organizing. And in Occupy Wall Street encampments around the country these debates have often exploded into public view.

For the past six months, we have been following the Occupy movement for a two-part documentary on Occupy for Fault Lines. We have spent weeks in conversation with activists as they have planned actions and struggled to keep their movement relevant through a cold winter. And organizers have told us repeatedly that they feel these discussions around race and gender, far from weakening the movement, have lent it strength and made organizing more accountable to the communities most affected by the economic crisis.

The process of challenging structural oppression has been difficult. We spoke to many women and people of color who felt pushed out of Occupy. Some activists, already bruised by dismissive media coverage, tried not to let these conflicts show. When internal conflicts would arise they tried to not let it happen on camera. But what we did observe are many fiercely intelligent activists dedicated to waging these struggles within Occupy and strengthening the movement with their work.

The 99 per cent

When people gathered in Zuccotti Park on September 17, the anger at corporate greed was a unifying call. This was a protest that in large part was about shifting power from the wealthy to the many. It was a mostly white crowd, but it sought to incorporate a wide range of voices.

The economic crisis in the US had made the white middle class question their future. Soaring unemployment rates, suffocating student loan debt, and thousands of foreclosures began to close in. This reality propelled the Occupy movement forward. And many feel that the presence of so many relatively privileged white people brought increased media attention and public sympathy.

Organizers told us they immediately saw the next step as needing to raise awareness among the many young people new to activism that came flocking to occupations. "It's the job of the social justice movement to continue that conversation," says Max Rameau, a co-founder of Take Back the Land, who has advised many of the Occupies.

He told us that occupiers need to "make sure this isn't just a movement of the way white people have gone from being able to every day shop at particular malls, and now they have to shop at reduced, discount stores … this has to do, really, about inequality and long-term inequality, including communities who have suffered for years, not just because of the recent economic downturn."

Many women reported harassment in the camp, and even assault - especially those that stayed overnight. "I think there were some (Occupy camps) that allowed homophobia and sexism to thrive in a really significant way," says Rameau. "I think homophobia and sexism in society exist everywhere, but were allowed to thrive in some of these areas."

Manissa Maharawal, a PhD student and Occupy activist, said: "I love the discourse of the 99 per cent. I think it's great, I think it's been really unifying. But I would like it to go along with saying something like, ‘We are the 99 per cent, but the way that we experience the 99 per cent can be very different.'"

Jack Bryson, a 49-year-old Black public service worker, became an activist after his sons witnessed the killing of their friend Oscar Grant at the hands of transit police in Oakland. When he heard that Occupy Oakland had named their camp Oscar Grant Plaza, he came to check it out. He was excited by what he found, but also thought many young white activists he met had a lot to learn about poverty and repression. "The black community, for 400 years, [have] always been the 99 per cent," Bryson said. "Welcome to our world."

Bryson was one of many who told us that Occupy activists needed to understand the ways in which communities of color experience the criminal justice system. He noted that Occupy Oakland had faced intense police repression. But, he told us, what many failed to realize was that police brutality is a daily fact of life in many communities. "Black, young men … would love to come out here. But what happens here, with the police? It happens on Saturday nights to Black young men leaving a nightclub, or a black young man going into a gas station and being followed by the police."

Boots Riley, a hip-hop artist and Occupy Oakland organizer, told us that he hopes the Occupy movement can challenge the ways that people have viewed policing. "I think that what happens normally is the media has most of white America looking at people of color as deficient, savage, and when they see something happen to them by police they believe that it was somehow their fault," says Riley. "Our ideas and views about the police are very tied in to our ideas and views about why people are poor."

If OWS wanted to be a movement that was going to shift power in the US, these organizers felt it had to come to terms with the fundamental differences in the ways that communities of color experienced racism, how women experienced patriarchy, and how queer and transgender communities experienced homophobia and gender bias. If Occupy Wall Street wanted to talk about envisioning an alternative community, activists would first have to face their own privilege.

That awareness has involved active engagement by white anti-racists, as well as the activists of color who committed deeply to the movement, despite often facing attacks for bringing up issues of race and gender.

"I was totally impressed by the leadership that was coming from young people of color, young women of color," activist and scholar Angela Davis told us in a conversation about Occupy camps she visited on the East coast.

"I think it's good that there's some white men getting involved, but they also have to recognize that, in order to be involved in this campaign of the 99 per cent against the one per cent, we have to recognize that the 99 per cent is hierarchically developed by itself."

Davis told us that Occupy was indebted to a long history of direct action led by women and by people of color. She specifically noted the legacy of resistance in prisons, led by those behind bars. "Let's recognize that we're not artificially imposing these issues on the Occupy movement," added Davis. "The Occupy movement has organically risen from those movements."

For Lisa Fithian, one of many white activists who seeks to challenge race and gender bias in the movement, this consciousness raising is a crucial part of struggling for justice."What I teach is that those with more privileges whether because your color of your skin, your gender, your education, whatever, how do you use those privileges strategically to raise those of all?"

"We have to take our privileges, become conscious and use them to actively change the social relationships, and access, and availability of resources," she added.

Blocking the process

Manissa Maharawal, a South Asian woman, has been one of Occupy Wall Street's most eloquent and passionate defenders. But she almost walked out of the movement on one of her very first visits to Zuccotti Park. When she, along with several people of color, stood up in front of hundreds of people to block a proposal at a very early Occupy Wall Street assembly, she felt anger and hostility from many of those present. She says it's "still one of the more intimidating things that I've had to do in my life". The proposal was for a document called the Declaration of the Occupation, and she felt language in the document erased oppression faced by people of color.

She did not want to have to block the proposal and face the angry stares of hundreds of people. However, says Maharawal, it's something she had to do. "What struck me then was that if I want Occupy to be something that's around for a long time in my life … it needs from the very beginning to be a movement that's taking these things on," she explained. "And that is thinking about not just corporate greed and financial institutions, but is thinking about how these things are connected to racism, to patriarchy, to oppression generally."

Ultimately, Maharawal and others who agreed with her succeeded in changing the language of the declaration. Nearly two months later, one of the white male activists who had expressed his frustration with her came up to her to thank her for her intervention. "I'm really glad you did that, I learned a lot right then," he told her.

"Making these connections is difficult, it's been like constant work in this movement," says Maharawal. But, she adds, "this stuff doesn't feel like minutia, it feels fundamental to me". She says this movement is about creating a real alternative to our current system, and, for her, that means fighting these systemic issues. "Why are we going to create a system that just re-creates all these oppressions? That recreates racism, that recreates oppression, that recreates gender hierarchy. Why would I want to be a part of that?"

Sweta Vohra and Jordan Flaherty are producers of Al Jazeera's Fault Lines. Fault Lines presents two special programs on the Occupy movement premiering March 20 & 27.

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.

Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in USA, By Bill Quigley

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

One. Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously. Every single person is entitled to dignity and human rights. No application needed. No exclusions at all. This is our highest priority.

Two. We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy. Current systems are deeply corrupt and not responsive to the needs of people. Representatives chosen by money and influence govern by money and influence. This is unacceptable. Direct democracy by the people is now technologically possible and should be the rule. Communities must be protected whenever they advocate for self-determination, self-development and human rights. Dissent is essential to democracy; we pledge to help it flourish.

Three. Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights. Amend the US Constitution so it is clear corporations do not have constitutional or human rights. We the people must cut them down to size and so democracy can regulate their size, scope and actions.

Four. Leave the rest of the world alone. Cut US military spending by 75 percent and bring all troops outside the US home now. Defense of the US is a human right. Global offense and global police force by US military are not. Eliminate all nuclear and chemical and biological weapons. Stop allowing scare tactics to build up the national security forces at home. Stop the myth that the US is somehow special or exceptional and is entitled to act differently than all other nations. The US must re-join the global family of nations as a respectful partner. USA is one of many nations in the world. We must start acting like it.

Five. Property rights, privilege, and money-making are not as important as human rights. When current property and privilege arrangements are not just they must yield to the demands of human rights. Money-making can only be allowed when human rights are respected. Exploitation is unacceptable. There are national and global poverty lines. We must establish national and global excess lines so that people and businesses with extra houses, cars, luxuries, and incomes share much more to help everyone else be able to exercise their basic human rights to shelter, food, education and healthcare. If that disrupts current property, privilege and money-making, so be it.

Six. Defend our earth. Stop pollution, stop pipelines, stop new interstates, and stop destroying the land, sea, and air by extracting resources from them. Rebuild what we have destroyed. If corporations will not stop voluntarily, people must stop them. The very existence of life is at stake.

Seven. Dramatically expand public spaces and reverse the privatization of public services. Quality public education, health and safety for all must be provided by transparent accountable public systems. Starving the state is a recipe for destroying social and economic human rights for everyone but the rich.

Eight. Pull the criminal legal prison system up and out by its roots and start over. Cease the criminalization of drugs, immigrants, poor people and people of color. We are all entitled to be safe but the current system makes us less so and ruins millions of lives. Start over.

Nine. The US was created based on two original crimes that must be confessed and made right. Reparations are owed to Native Americans because their land was stolen and they were uprooted and slaughtered. Reparations are owed to African Americans because they were kidnapped, enslaved and abused. The US has profited widely from these injustices and must make amends.

Ten. Everyone who wants to work should have the right to work and earn a living wage. Any workers who want to organize and advocate for change in solidarity with others must be absolutely protected from recriminations from their employer and from their government.

Finally, if those in government and those in power do not help the people do what is right, people seeking change must together exercise our human rights and bring about these changes directly. Dr. King and millions of others lived and worked for a radical revolution of values. We will as well. We respect the human rights and human dignity of others and work for a world where love and wisdom and solidarity and respect prevail. We expect those for whom the current unjust system works just fine will object and oppose and accuse people seeking dramatic change of being divisive and worse. That is to be expected because that is what happens to all groups which work for serious social change. Despite that, people will continue to go forward with determination and purpose to bring about a radical revolution of values in the USA.

Bill is a human rights lawyer who teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and works with the Center for Constitutional Rights. You can reach him at quigley77@gmail.com.

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.

Long History of Targeting Black Elected Officials

In the aftermath of our coverage of Waterproof Louisiana, we've gotten many comments from around the US. One longtime New Orleans activist wrote that Waterproof reminds her of a 30-year old case from rural Mississippi. She sent us the following excerpt from an article about the struggle. From 1980-81, activists from New Orleans' Equal Rights Congress, People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, and others organized around this case:

Tchula's First Black Mayor
(Excerpt from The Militant newspaper):

... In 1977, Eddie Carthan was elected mayor of Tchula, the first Black ever to be elected mayor of a biracial town in the Delta. He was forced out of office in 1981, just one month shy of completing his first term, after being convicted on trumped-up charges of assaulting a police officer. He was given a three-year prison sentence. After seven months, the governor suspended the rest of his sentence.

When Carthan took office, he recalled, Tchula was still segregated, with whites living on one side of the railroad tracks, and Blacks - who were 85 percent of the population -on the other. In the Black community, roads were unpaved, there were no sidewalks or streetlights, 80 percent of the houses had no indoor plumbing, other social services were poor or missing entirely. There were no Blacks heading up any city department, and many Blacks "did not know where the City Hall was," Carthan recalled.

Carthan sought to bring in improved housing, medical care, as well as water and sewage programs to the Black community. In an effort to punish him and put the Black community back in its place, the local white business and landowning establishment began "investigating" him from the moment he took office. "It was a legal lynching and a political lynching," Carthan said.

Before he was even released from prison on the assault charges, Carthan was again framed up -- this time on charges that he had murdered a city alderman a year earlier, in 1980. He was finally acquitted of the murder charge, after his case became known nationally and internationally....

While in jail facing the murder charges, he was framed up again, this time on charges of giving false information to a local bank. Sentenced in 1982 to three years in federal prison, he was released by judge's order after eight months...

Lawsuit Puts Hold on Closing of SUNO

Last week, advocates took legal action in an attempt to stop Governor Jindal's actions to dissolve SUNO. LJI has posted the legal documents on our NOLA Public Records website. Below is an excerpt from a summary of the status of the legal claims, from BayouBuzz News:

Seven Southern University System students filed a legal action against Governor Bobby Jindal and the Board of Regents seeking a Temporary Restraining Order, Preliminary Injunction, and Declaratory Judgment declaring that the Board is unconstitutionally composed, based on it’s current gender and racial make up. La. Const. Art. 8, Sec. 5(A)(B)(1) provides for the qualifications of the 15 members of the Board of Regents who are appointed by the Governor. This Constitutional Provision which was passed by both bodies of the Legislature and the majority of the people of this great state provides that “The board should be representative of the state's population by race and gender to ensure diversity” Governor Bobby Jindal, however ignored such constitutional requirements and removed all African-Americans and one woman replacing them with all white males.

According to the most recent gender based data available at the time of this suit, the 2000 Census, the state’s gender population is 51.6% female; However, females only represent 26% of woman on the board (4 out of 15 appointed members). Also, according to the most recent Census’ numbers, the 2010 Census the state’s population is made up of 37.44% racial minorities. However, there are currently no appointed racial minorities on this Board.

At this time, the Board of Regents is restrained from taking any further action concerning any merger of SUNO and UNO, conducting any study, or scheduling and holding any hearings and meetings on this issue. A hearing will take place on February 24, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. to determine if a Preliminary Injunction should issue pending the full disposition of the case. The Attorneys for the plaintiffs are Cleo Fields and Katrina Jackson.

Is justice finally on its way for police actions in the aftermath of Katrina?

Two weeks ago, a federal judge partially granted class certification in a lawsuit seeking to hold the Gretna Police Department and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office accountable for their actions in the aftermath of Katrina. The lawsuit addresses the actions of police on the Crescent City Connection Bridge, when New Orleanians who tried to escape from the flooded city were shot at by police.

Last week, attorneys filed an offshoot case in Orleans Civil District Court, which also names Crescent City Connection Police Chief Michael Helmstetter and the state of Louisiana as defendants. The Times-Picayune reports, “As state entities, they are immune under federal law, but not state law, said attorney Adele Owen of the Schmolke Firm in Baton Rouge, which filed the case with Cleo Fields.”

According to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by Louisiana Justice Institute, “The police officers employed by the Gretna Police Department, Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and the Crescent City Connection Bridge Police acted willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with reckless disregard for the petitioners’ safety…Further, said policy resulted from an intentional choice, among various alternatives, to follow a course of action which evidences deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights and safety of the petitioners.”

This is no rash action in a crisis. There is an abundance of evidence that Gretna police knew exactly what they were doing – and still feel no remorse about it, even to this day. Those that participated in this terrible action felt no empathy for the people of New Orleans.

As the LA Times reported way back in September of 2005, “Little over a week after this mostly white suburb became a symbol of callousness for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans — trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city — the Gretna City Council passed a resolution supporting the police chief's move. 'This wasn't just one man's decision," Mayor Ronnie C. Harris said Thursday. "The whole community backs it.'"

If a whole community is responsible for a crime, how do you rebuild justice? We hope these lawsuits are a step in the direction of accountability.