Protest poetry rings of justice

Local poets back six teenagers they feel are unjustly charged with a serious crime.

By RODNEY THRASH, Times Staff Writer
Published September 21, 2007

TAMPA -- In a dimly lit nightclub off Nebraska Avenue, she grabbed her symbol of protest.

Microphone in hand, anger spilled out in fast, rhythmic cadences.

Poet Shawna Williamson closed her eyes.

Six black boys left rotting in jails
Parents too poor for six-figure bails.

Poets across the Tampa Bay area didn't need to go to a tiny town in central Louisiana to heighten awareness of a case that has incensed people, black and white, who feel the criminal justice system failed six black teenagers.

They raised that -- and money -- at home.

"You don't have to wait for somebody else to stand up and do something," said Lizz Straight, host of Poetry Is, a show on WMNF-FM 88.5. "You can be the catalyst for change in your community."

Straight and Williamson, two local spoken word artists, organized Thursday's "Jena 6 Poetry Benefit Concert" at the Harbor Club to raise money for the Jena 6 Legal Defense Fund. All the proceeds -- from ticket sales, CD sales, T-shirt sales -- will go to the fund.

Last year, a group of black teenagers was charged, initially, with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate. The beating victim had been knocked unconscious, his face left swollen and bloodied. But he still was able to attend a school function the same night.

"What really got me," said Straight, 27, "these are babies. These are kids. They have futures ahead of them."

The Tampa benefit fell on a day when busloads of chanting demonstrators, including the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, descended on Jena, about four hours northwest of New Orleans.

Like the national rally, the Tampa poets dressed all in black. The organizers of the national rally asked protesters to wear that color as a sign of solidarity.

One by one, more than 20 poets -- some from as far as Jacksonville and Miami -- took turns blasting the prosecutor in the case, the government and the media.

The audience talked back to the poets, almost like the call-and-response of the black church. They raised their fists in the air. They waved their hands from side to side when prompted.

Some poems were filled with anger and disgust.

Others, including one by Williamson, were dark and foreboding.

At the beginning of the benefit, Williamson, who is Jamaican, and Adrienne Nadeau, who is white, recited a poem in unison.

This is the straw that will break injustice's back
Now we are united
Launching a counterattack.

Rodney Thrash can be reached at rthrash@sptimes.com or (813) 269-5303.

[Last modified September 21, 2007, 00:49:51]