Several churches and community organizations coordinated the bus trips to Jena to support the six Black teens from Jena who are charged with felonies after being involved in a school fight with a white schoolmate. The white student was charged with a misdemeanor.

Mychal Bell was originally charged and convicted as an adult, even though he was 16 years old at the time. His conviction as an adult was overturned last week and he will be tried as a juvenile.

The other five defendants will still be tried as adults because they were 17 years old at the time. Carwin Jones and Theodore Shaw were each charged with aggravated second-degree battery. Trial has been set in January for Jones and Shaw. Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Jesse Beard were each charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

One woman who saw a flier in a business on East 79th Street advertising a trip to Jena said there was no other option but to be on one of the busses.

"I have to go. All that injustice…I have a son and that could have been him. I'm going down there to let them know that there are people in Chicago that don't think this is right. I'm not only going down there for my son, but my grandsons to come and great-grandsons also," Trudie Strickland told the Defender as she waited for the bus to load.

Strickland, whose 19-year-old son is not traveling with her, said she was born in the 1960s during the "Fight the Power protest era."

"It's been a long time since we've come together peacefully. The opportunity to be a part of history and to make a statement with a group as one, I just have to go," Strickland said.

The New York-based National Action Network's Chicago chapter also sent busloads of about 200 people to Jena. And, about 50 people traveled with the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition to be on hand for the demonstration.

Several hundred people who couldn't make the trip stayed behind and held a candlelight vigil and rally downtown organized by the St. Sabina Faith Community.

"We are standing in solidarity with this. Right now it's the Jena 6, but it's much more than that. It's the incarceration of children around this country. Black teens are six times more likely to be tried and put in prison than white teens. This is a waking point for us all and is just the beginning," Pfleger told the Defender.

One of the demonstrators at the rally at the Daley Plaza told the Defender that the racial injustice the teens are receiving in Louisiana is happening too often in many other cities and it must stop.

"Not only am I here to support the Jena 6, but I'm here for all of the African-American communities that are facing the same type of situation. I'm supporting justice for our Black youth across this country and to rally against the criminal justice system," Maceo Thomas said.