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Traffic jammed the two-lane road leading into the tiny town of Jena early Thursday as thousands of demonstrators gathered in support of six black teens initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said it could be the beginning of the 21st century's civil rights movement, one that would challenge disparities in the justice system. "You cannot have justice meted out based on who you are rather than what you did," Sharpton told CBS's "The Early Show" Thursday.
The six were charged a few months after the local prosecutor declined to charge three white high school students who hung nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder, but that charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth teen was charged as a juvenile.
"This is the most blatant example of disparity in the justice system that we've seen," Sharpton said Thursday. "You can't have two standards of justice. We didn't bring race in it, those that hung the nooses brought the race into it."
District Attorney Reed Walters, breaking a long public silence, denied Wednesday that racism was involved.
