Pro-white backlash seen in Jena 6 case

HOUSTON — No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.

First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house," prompting an investigation by the FBI.

Then the leader of a white-supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to "realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind."

The Jena 6 case has drawn scrutiny from civil-rights leaders and hundreds of African-American Internet bloggers concerned about allegations that blacks have been treated more harshly than whites in the criminal-justice system of the town of 3,000, which is 85 percent white.

David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, last week announced his support for Jena's white residents, who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor in 1991.

"There is a major white-supremacist backlash building," said Mark Potok, a hate-group expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group in Montgomery, Ala.

On Thursday a crowd of at least 20,000 peaceful demonstrators from around the country marched through the central Louisiana town to support the six black high-school students who were initially charged by the local prosecutor with attempted murder for attacking Barker last December. The charges were later reduced to aggravated second-degree battery.

The racial unrest began when three white students hung nooses from a tree at the high school after black students asked permission to sit under it, triggering a series of fights. The whites involved were charged with misdemeanors or not at all while the blacks drew various felony charges.