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The United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race joins United Methodists and other people of faith in calling for equal justice and healing from the racial crisis in Jena, La., where six African-American teenagers face charges for allegedly beating a white youth at school. And yet, we know that both justice and healing will be hard to come by.
As tens of thousands of protesters marched on Sept. 20 in Jena, in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere around the nation, we were encouraged by the outpouring of public response.

There have been several alarming racial incidents and inequities reported in this local controversy, born of years of separation and enmity between black and white
students.

About a year ago, a black student asked to sit under a tree on campus where whites usually gathered exclusively. The next morning three white students had hung nooses from the tree, sending a message that recalled the painful history of lynching, when black people were hung from trees, mutilated and set afire to humiliate and intimidate the black community. The three boys received a brief suspension for committing what school administrators called 'an adolescent prank.'

When black students protested, the annoyed white district attorney reportedly warned them, 'I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen.'

A series of violent incidents involving black and white students followed, leading to the assault on a white student. His alleged attackers, initially charged with attempted murder, are the six black youths now facing trials for aggravated assault and conspiracy. One, who has been in jail since last December, was convicted as an adult; but an appeals court overturned that conviction since he should have been tried as a juvenile.

The phenomenal national response to this crisis in a tiny sawmill town of less than 3,000 people proves many activists are heeding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s admonition that, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' Perhaps they are mindful, too, of Jesus' call to visit and demand justice for even 'the least of these,' including those who are in prison.

We know that racism is still a prevalent evil in communities, schools, workplaces, institutions and yes, even churches. It is usually subtle, even hidden; but when it emerges as flagrantly as it did in this controversy, we are compelled to respond en masse in nonviolent protest, petitions, publicity, and use of the most potent response to evil there is: continuous prayers that invoke God to give us that which we too often fail to give each other: justice and mercy.

We know that everyone who violated laws and harmed others in these incidents should face justice, but it should be equal justice. Those who dismiss the hanging of nooses as a mere prank, or don't understand the still lingering horror and pain of that heinous symbol, help perpetuate the insensitivity and lack of compassion that fuels schisms between races and ethnic groups.

We are encouraged that predominantly white Nolley Memorial UMC in Jena opened its doors to greet arriving marchers and is trying to help bring compassion and healing to the divisive situation. We're also glad that students from Howard University in Washington and other campuses were inspired to attend the march, while students at other schools held their own rallies ?including at the University of Maryland, where another noose-hanging recently occurred.

It is important that young people of all races are paying attention and responding to this controversy. Many have experienced racism, violence, threats and intimidation. Some can relate to what happened to the students in Jena. Some fear it could happen to them.

I grieve for the white youth who was beaten unconscious and probably scarred emotionally by that incident. I grieve no less for the blind racial hatred he and others feel and express in numerous ways. I grieve also for those black young men ? and so many others like them ? whose outbursts of anger and hatred are roiled by the constant racism they must endure and whose fragile lives now hang upon the unbalanced scales of a flawed judicial system like so many nooses hanging from a fruitless tree.

While the marchers have returned to their homes, campuses, jobs and communities, we as a church must remain concerned and watchful of what happens from here on, not only in Jena but across this hurting nation.

We must be watchful and prayerful that God will look upon our conflict-ridden lives and relationships with grace and will call us to engage in more concerted, faithful actions like those protests, so that together we might witness the miracles of justice, peace and healing we so desperately seek.