The Jena Six were six black teenagers in Jena, Louisiana , convicted in the beating of Justin Barker, a white student at the local Jena High School , which they also attended. Barker was injured on December 4, , by the members of the Jena Six, and received treatment at an emergency room. While the case was pending, it was often cited by some media commentators as an example of racial injustice in the United States.
Some commentators believed that the defendants had been charged initially with too-serious offenses and had been treated unfairly. A number of events had taken place in and around Jena in the months before the Barker assault, which the media have associated with an alleged escalation of local racial tensions. These events included: the hanging of rope nooses from a tree in the high school courtyard, two violent confrontations between white and black youths, and the destruction by arson of the main building of Jena High School.
Extensive news coverage related to the Jena Six often reported these events as linked. Mychal Bell was initially convicted as an adult of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery.
His convictions were overturned on the grounds that he should have been tried as a juvenile. Before a retrial in juvenile court , Bell pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of simple battery. The other five defendants later pleaded " no contest " to the same offense and were convicted.
The Jena Six case sparked protests by people who considered the arrests and subsequent charges, initially attempted second-degree murder , as excessive and racially discriminatory. The protesters asserted that white Jena youths involved in similar incidents were treated more leniently.
