Rep. Jackson-Lee: 'Hanging nooses is the new burning cross'
The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), is set to begin hearings Tuesday on the Jena Six case, involving an incident in which six black teenagers were charged with beating up a white student after nooses were hung from a tree at their Louisiana school. Civil rights leaders and others with knowledge of the case will be testifying, and Rev. Al Sharpton is expected to ask for an expansion of federal hate crime laws.
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), who sits on the Judiciary Committee, explained to CNN why a greater degree of federal intervention in a case like Jena is desirable. She began by pointing out that the desegregation of southern schools 50 years ago "required an enormous amount of action by the federal government" and affirmed that there is a similar moral responsibility today to take action against hate crimes and school violence.
"Many of us are disappointed in the lack of action that occurred in this very difficult time [at Jena] as relates to the federal government and the civil rights division," Jackson-Lee said. She pointed out that the beating of the Jena student was only the final act in a long series of racial confrontations and could have been prevented if the original noose incident had been recognized as a warning sign that called for federal action. "The hanging of the nooses now has become the new symbol of the burning cross," she stated.
Jackson-Lee took pains to explain why federal intervention in what might seem to be local incidents like those at Jena is appropriate, saying that US Attorneys "are located in our communities to be sensitive to not only criminal actions but violations of civil rights." She also pointed out that US Attorneys also have access to community relations officers, who can be sent to an area to set up reconciliation meetings.
Jackson-Lee concluded by saying that the Judiciary Committee hearing "is the beginning, I believe, of an ongoing inquiry into what happened in Jena, Louisiana -- but more particularly, why did it happen and why there was not an effective ... intervention on behalf of the federal government."
The following video is from CNN's Newsroom, broadcast on October 16, 2007.
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