Rock star's anti-racist video on Jena 6

John “Cougar” Mellencamp, a longtime popular white rock singer and songwriter in the United States, recently wrote a powerful song about the case of the Jena 6—Black youths facing serious charges for attacking a white student.

The song, entitled, “Jena, Take Your Nooses Down,” is performed on a video that includes amazing images from the civil-rights movement, including shots of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., photos of the Jena 6 and of horrific lynchings of Black people.

The song refers to the three nooses hung from a “white” tree by racists after Black students sat under it at a high school in September 2006.

When the mayor of Jena, La., denounced the video as “inflammatory” and “defamatory,” Mellencamp responded, “The song is not written as an indictment of the people of Jena but, rather, as a condemnation of racism in America.”

Go to www.mellencamp.com to see the video and read Mellencamp’s explanation.

—Monica Moorehead