“Replace the HATE OF 1958” Jena, Louisiana 2007

“Replace the HATE OF 1958” Jena, Louisiana 2007

This sign serves as a powerful historical marker, demonstrating the protestors’ sophisticated understanding of the legacy of racial injustice.

The year 1958 holds particular significance in American civil rights history as a peak period of “Massive Resistance,” the political and social movement in the South dedicated to defying the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that declared school segregation unconstitutional. By invoking 1958, the protester directly links the current failure of the school and judicial system in Jena—which began with racial tension over a segregated “white tree”—to the institutionalized, defiant racism of the Jim Crow era.

The call to “Replace the HATE” is a demand not just for a legal victory in the Jena Six case, but for a fundamental societal transformation. It insists that the nation must finally move beyond the ingrained, institutionalized bigotry that defined the era of segregation and deliver genuine, equitable justice in the 21st century. The sign, which is also marked “ATLANTA” at the bottom, further emphasizes the national scope of the protest, showing that civil rights advocates from across the country mobilized to address this enduring historical wound.