“After a black student sat under a tree on the school campus where white students traditionally congregated, three nooses were hung in the tree.”
That’s kind of the watered-down version. That makes it sound as though he was just sitting there minding his own business and the mean old white kids weren’t going to have it.
When I was in school (we played Jena in football) some black kids hung out by the gym entrance. Now, we got along great at my school but I would not have considered planting myself in front of the gym at break and tried to take over their little “click” location. That’s where that click hung out and everybody respected it. Not to do so would likely have caused problems. There were no problems
The Skoal dippers sat on a bench under a tree that EVERYBODY called the “Skoal Bench”. Nobody but that click hung out there. Everybody respected that. I can see a similar response if some trouble-maker decided he was going to intrude on that click just to get a rise out of them.
The guy was begging for a reason to fight someone and the white kids did the wrong thing with the nooses and fell right into it.
I can see a similar response if some trouble-maker decided he was going to intrude on that click just to get a rise out of them.
As to the town’s discrimination, an incident previous to this attack does bring up the question. During an altercation, one white kid went to his truck and pulled out a shotgun. It was wrestled away from him and the black kid was charged with theft of a firearm, second degree robbery and disturbing the peace. The white kid, who pulled the gun, was not charged at all.