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	Workers Vanguard No. 907	1 February 2008

Drop Charges Against Anti-Fascist Protester!

Jena, Louisiana

Correction Appended

We print below a January 27 letter from the Partisan Defense Committee to LaSalle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters. The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League.

The Partisan Defense Committee demands that the charges be dropped against William Winchester Jr., a supporter of the New Black Panther Party who was arrested in Jena, Louisiana, for demonstrating against a fascist provocation on January 21, Martin Luther King Day. Mr. Winchester was charged with battery of a police officer and resisting arrest.

The white supremacists, led by the Mississippi-based Nationalist Movement, came to Jena armed, waving the Confederate flag of black chattel slavery and brandishing lynch-rope nooses. The race-terrorists staged their murderous threats under the protection of several hundred state, local and federal law enforcement officers, including deputies from other parishes, SWAT teams and police snipers stationed on roofs.

The fascist bands spewing their racist filth through the streets of Jena are part of a wave of racist provocations, many involving hanging nooses to terrorize black people, that have swept the U.S. after the September 20 demonstration in Jena. That day, as many as 50,000 overwhelmingly black people protested against Jim Crow “justice” and in defense of the Jena Six, black high school students framed up for defending themselves after months of racist attacks. Mychal Bell of the Jena Six is now in prison. Free Mychal Bell! Drop all charges against the Jena Six! Drop the charges against William Winchester Jr.!

Correction

A January 27 letter by the Partisan Defense Committee, printed in our last issue (“Drop Charges Against Anti-Fascist Protester!” WV No. 907, 1 February), incorrectly stated that “Mychal Bell of the Jena Six is now in prison.” In fact, Bell moved into an area foster home in December 2007, where he remains in the custody of the Office of Youth Development following a December plea agreement in juvenile court. (From WV No. 908, 15 February 2008.)