 "Photo: Frank Franklin II / The Associated Press")
JENA, La. - Tens of thousands of protesters from across the nation invaded the small Southern town of Jena, La., Thursday, calling for the release of teen Mychal Ball from prison and for a judge to drop charges against five other students.
Demonstrations led by NAACP leaders, Black Panthers and others took place across the town, in the LaSalle Parish Courthouse, Jena High School and on street corners in between.
Protesters came from as far as Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles, as well as USC.
Ball and the other students, who are all black, face charges of attempted murder for beating up a white student.
Sadiah Rahim, 44, a U.S. postal worker from Manning, said she came to Jena to stand up for what's right and that it is more than a racial issue.
"We have become passive and not done anything against the wrongs," she said. "We need to stand up for the right."
Rahim said she didn't think the teens' sentence was a matter of racial tension.
"It was blatantly wrong," she said. "I think (the judge) would have been just as capable of doing this to a white kid or Mexican kid."
Rahim's daughter is a second-year USC student. Rahim's daughter was proud her mother went to Jena but had a hard time talking about the issue with her friends, the mother said.
"I want to set an example for my children," Rahim said.
Tresslyn Neff, 28, of Baton Rouge, La., got to Jena at 3 a.m. Thursday and had seen thousands of people by 9 a.m.
Neff said she stopped counting busloads of arriving protest groups at 60.
Leann Murphy, CEO of the Central Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross, said the state police projected 10,000 to 60,000 people to come to the town with a population just under 3,000.
Most Jena businesses were shut down for the day, and the school was closed.
"The entire town shut down," said Jena business owner Sandra, 25. Sandra didn't want her last name printed because her husband works in law enforcement. "We didn't know what to expect or what the protesters had in mind," she said.
Surrounding the LaSalle Parish Courthouse were chanting demonstrators who listened and leaned on the words of speakers Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others.
Jackson led the crowd in chants of support for the "Jena Six" families.
"Have respect for Mychal, his family and his lawyers," Jackson said.
The controversy in the town started after a black high school student one day sat under a tree that normally only white students sat under. The next day, nooses hung from the tree, and intense racial tension filled the town.
At the high school Thursday, demonstrators stood where the oak tree once grew and called for "justice" for the students. They also said African-Americans should claim their identity as Africans first.
Elizabeth Smith, 18, of Houston Anti-Racist Action, said even though she wasn't there when the incidents occurred, she doubts many of the townspeople were there either.
"It's like terrorism," Smith said. "Are nooses not a fear tactic?"
Smith said she hopes that the rally would make people aware of a racist legal system.
Not all those who marched in Jena thought the black students were innocent - many said the charges didn't fit the crime.
"When you have six children in a fight, it's wrong," Neff said. She said the students "need to be punished for that" but they don't deserve to spend 15 to 20 years in jail for it.
"Apparently I'm not alone in saying that," she said.
Between 300 and 400 law enforcement officers from across the state were on hand in Jena to control the protests if they got out of hand, but the day stayed "relatively" peaceful, said James Busby, a patrol officer from Franklin Parrish.
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