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,...

Dear Rev Jackson, Good to see you back in the news, bro. I caught your new gig at the rally in Jena last night. Got to admit, I've been so busy studying (college is way hard) that I haven't had time to pay attention to the news. I turned up the volume once I saw you on TV, but I only caught the tail end of the segment. Question: What's the deal? The biased [white] media made it sound like six black guys piled onto one white guy and kicked the s*** out of him. Was he the guy that...