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Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney spoke in Seattle at New Hope Baptist Church on Saturday, November 10th, on the Jena 6 case. This case has focused an international spotlight on this country's criminal justice system and the ongoing struggle against racism. Nooses, a symbol of racist lynchings, have been hung in several places recently, including Jena and Columbia University in New York City.

McKinney is a firm opponent of the war in Iraq, and while she was serving in congress, she offered Articles of Impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Rice. She recently quit the Democratic Party and filed paperwork with the FEC creating an exploratory committee for a Green Party presidential campaign.

The night's topic was the Jena Six but she didn't limit her talk to that case. McKinney spoke on both national and international justice issues. Here are some of the highlights of her inspiring talk.

McKinney told the audience "[T]he reason I stand up here today as the former member of congress is because I dared to confront empire."

"People say the United States is a superpower. How in the world can you call yourself a superpower when your dropping bombs on the most impoverished people in the world?"

During her speech, McKinney addressed the issue of impeachment and war crimes: "Because we can't get impeachment here, it means we can't get justice here. That's why I've become involved in international litigation. I'm involved with the Brussels Tribunal because we have to take anybody who is a war criminal and a torturer to the international courts."

She challenged the audience to see the larger picture: "We know Jena 6 is the tip of the iceberg of what is happening in our country."

"How is it, that this country, so vast, and so rich, so wealthy, and so resourceful, can't bring 200,000 people back to the city of New Orleans? How can it be that our Democratically controlled congress can give George Bush an additional fifty billion dollars for war and cannot fund people to go home to the Gulf Coast? How can it be?"

On July 22, 2005, the first anniversary of the release of the 9/11 Commission Report, McKinney held a Congressional briefing on the outstanding issues regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks. The 9/11 Commission sealed all the notes and transcripts of some 2,000 interviews, all the forensic evidence, and all (classified and non-classified) documents used in compiling its final report.

McKinney, still has questions about the role of the Bush administration, "What did they know and when did they know it?"

McKinney believes that Jena can be a catalyst for a new movement: "[A] careful reading of those co-intel papers [the FBI program to suppress political dissent] indicates to me.. that the one thing ... our government [is] most afraid of is black folks and white folks and brown folks and Asians and Muslims and Jews... all of us coming together.

"... And that's why the Jena 6 movement is so critical... we've got young people creating the movement that many of us have been waiting for. And [the Jena 6] movement ... crossed all the lines and divisions that they have painted out there for us to fall prey to."

"All of a sudden because of six children... in Jena, Louisiana, we have an opportunity to once again to come together across all those lines of division. We have an opportunity to make a movement led and inspired by young people. Just like those four college kids who decided to sit down at a lunch counter and wrote a new page in American history."