It's the Same Old Story in Jena Today - washingtonpost.com: Fifty years ago today, nine African American teenagers in Little Rock were escorted into Central High School by National Guardsmen while an angry white mob hurled racial epithets.
Last week, thousands of marchers protested the plight of six young African American high school students charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate in Jena, La. They were treated much more harshly than white teenagers who beat up a black student in the town.
The two cases are divided by context, circumstances and 50 years, but at the heart of the conflicts is a fight over something as fundamental as space in a toxic racial climate. In 1957, the contested space was a white school that was formally placed off limits to black students. In Jena, it was the "white tree," a privileged spot of shade from the hot Louisiana sun. It seemed to have been reserved for white use only and it was part of the series of events that led to the Jena controversy.
