AllMovie

Mumia Abu Jamal narrates this documentary highlighting the racial tensions that emerged when the black students in the sleepy Louisiana town attempted to integrate the playground at a local school. December 2006: Jena, LA. The morning after a black freshman asks the principal whether he can sit under a courtyard tree commonly known as the "white tree," two nooses are discovered dangling from the tree's branches - an ominous catalyst for a tragic sequence of events. Soon, fights are breaking out all across town, a white resident threatens a group of black students with a shotgun, and a large portion of the school is mysteriously burnt to the ground. When the DA puts six black students on trial for the attempted murder of a white student, Jena makes headlines across the country. Now this once-quiet town in the scene of the largest civil rights demonstration in the South since the days of Martin Luther King, Jr. While so many continue to live their lives under the false notion that racism is a thing of the past, the so-called "Jena 6" incident shined a harsh light on lingering racial inequality in the 21st Century, and the violence that can still follow.