Despite Kennesaw, Ga., police detectives declaring in 2005 that John McNeil, 46, acted in self-defense, Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head decided a year later to try the case. McNeil was sentenced in November 2006.
"If this can happen to John McNeil, then it can happen to [Georgia NAACP President] Ed DuBose, it can happen to William Barber, it can happen to Ben Jealous. It can happen to any black man standing out here or standing anywhere in America, no matter how much good you've done or how right you are," the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, told the crowd in front of the Georgia State Capitol. Barber, a longtime friend of McNeil's, along with Jealous and other NAACP members, went to see him in prison before the press conference.
