by Jamilah Hoffman
The trip is now familiar. The house at the bend of the road with the confederate flag still waves in the wind. Despite the calendar on the wall telling me that it’s 2008, national oppression, in the form of nooses being hung all around the country, reminds me that this country has not progressed as much as I was taught to believe.
On MLK day in Jena, a white supremacist group calling itself The Nationalist Movement decided that they needed to combat all the powerful outpouring that occurred when tens of thousands of mostly Black people marched last fall to support the Jena 6. The Nationalist Movement planned to march with guns and nooses saying “No to the Jena 6” and “No to MLK.” Of course this had to be opposed.
The media has portrayed the day as one radical group against another but that’s not the full picture. The people who made up the January 21st committee that called for the counter protest were as diverse as those who answered their call. There were high school students from St. Louis, women from Montana, residents from New Orleans, young people from Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Harlem and Ohio. Despite the cold weather and long miles, we stood in solidarity with the Jena 6 and those residents who are against white supremacy. The people who made up the counter protests were young and old and from different races and the goal of politically drowning out the white supremacist’s message were accomplished.
What I want to emphasize, however, is that the energy of our group, when we were in front of the LaSalle Parish courthouse and facing the Louisiana State Police was strong. I felt so proud and embolden to be on the right side of this fight. Our event was positive and our message of “No Nooses” was strong. For some reason, the media has highlighted events toward the end of the day that showed incidents that make for good TV, but they failed to report on the true essence of the day.
At the end of the march and “drown out,” we rode in a car caravan through the Black neighborhood of Jena. The people were so happy to see us and we were just as happy to see them. They waved and we waved back. Some even ran into their homes and put on their “Free the Jena 6” t-shirts in time for us to see them as we came back around again. We wanted them to know that we had their backs and would not forget them. They thanked us and one middle aged Black man even told us that he loved us. Creating relationships with people and standing up for the oppressed is what this was all about and even though that message can be overlooked by some, it is what made the event successful.
All photos credited to Everett Taasevigen