Free Republic

JENA, La. | Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and talk-show hosts certainly feasted on the racial unrest in this tiny central Louisiana town. But it would be unfair to claim they threw the match that ignited the Jena Six case into a global blaze of hostility and misinformation. That distinction belongs to Alan Bean, a 54-year-old white, self-proclaimed Baptist minister from Tulia, Texas. “Do I know him?” was LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters’ sarcastic and dismissive response when I asked about Bean during a 45-minute interview. “People are reluctant to say it,” said Craig Franklin, editor of the Jena Times,...