Decatur Il Schools

A standoff over the expulsion of six black students for fighting continued Sunday as the Rev. Jesse Jackson led a chanting group of about 2,000 people through the streets and threatened to stage mass civil disobedience. Jackson told the crowd that he would visit the schools Tuesday morning to demonstrate and force authorities to arrest him. He asked how many would be willing to join him in jail, and hundreds of people raised their hands.

This is a factory town, a union town, a town where folks have long been able to ask a stranger one question--labor or management?--and know much of what they needed to know. It is also a town laid low time and again by that divide. Now, after weeks of grueling debate over the expulsions of seven African American high school students for fighting, and over the ensuing protests led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, "Strike Town, U.S.A.

This is a factory town, a union town, a town where folks have long been able to ask a stranger one question--labor or management?--and know much of what they needed to know. It is also a town laid low time and again by that divide. Now, after weeks of grueling debate over the expulsions of seven African American high school students for fighting, and over the ensuing protests led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, "Strike Town, U.S.A.

A standoff over the expulsion of six black students for fighting continued Sunday as the Rev. Jesse Jackson led a chanting group of about 2,000 people through the streets and threatened to stage mass civil disobedience. Jackson told the crowd that he would visit the schools Tuesday morning to demonstrate and force authorities to arrest him. He asked how many would be willing to join him in jail, and hundreds of people raised their hands.