The case of the Jena Six, involving six black Louisiana high school students whose incarceration wasdenounced as unfair and racially motivated, has sparked a wave of protest that has reached Oberlin College. In response to calls on the behalf of the incarcerated young men, Oberlin students joined a nationwide walkout and held a rally in Wilder Bowl on Monday.

As part of the Wilder Bowl walkout, a rotation of students read aloud a flier from the “Malcolm X Grassroots Movement,” which provided a brief history of the Jena Six and a list of demands, including the dropping of charges against the Jena Six, the investigation of several responsible officials and a Justice Department investigation into the arrest and prosecution of the Six.

According to the flier, events were set in motion last year when black students in Jena, LA sat under a tree usually frequented only by whites. White students later hung nooses from the tree as a form of symbolic intimidation, triggering escalating racial tension in the town and leading District Attorney Reed Walters to tell the black students he could “make [their] lives disappear with stroke of [his] pen.”

“The DA did nothing in response to several egregious cases of violence and threats against black students,” states the flier. “When a white student who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses sustained minor injuries from a school fight, six black students were charged with second-degree attempted murder. Last month, the first young man to be tried, Mychal Bell, was convicted. He faces 22 years in prison for a school fight until the black people began to organize and his conviction was thrown out.”

Students noted that Bell was released on bail on September 27 after ten months in jail, but that he still faced retrial in juvenile court.

“As students and activists we say, ‘This is enough,’” said College first-year Megan Day, quoting the flier. “From Sean Bell [shot by New York City Police last November] to Mychal Bell, the criminal justice system is killing and incarcerating us.”

In addition to the Jena Six case, the Oberlin walkout focused on the national struggle for racial justice and addressed local incidents of injustice in accordance with a suggestion from the Jena Six families.

To highlight the issues raised by the Jena Six, students took turns denouncing wrongs committed by the criminal justice system.

“We all live in Jena,” said College sophomore Marcelino Echeverria. “The prison-industrial complex continues to cage people, take apart families, destroy communities and inflict untold traumas.”
After recounting the arrest of three Oberlin students early Sunday morning, College senior Kyla Neilan called for students to “stand and protest racist application of law in this country from Jena, LA, to here in Oberlin, OH.”

Double-degree senior Monisola Gbadebo, whose sister was one of the students arrested on Sunday, said there was a “systemic problem” with the Oberlin police and that “every student has the right to feel safe here, and yet I do not [feel safe].”

Event organizers also distributed photocopies of articles on recent roundups of immigrant workers launched by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a Koch Foods chicken plant in Fairfield, OH, where the ICE detained 160 people.

The Oberlin walkout was organized by an informal assortment of College students. “I’m really excited by the turnout and tremendously excited to see what actions comes out of this,” said College senior and walkout organizer Gabriel Cohen.