Rev. Jackson Rides Fenger Bus To Highlight "State of Emergency"

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (left) talks with Rev. Jesse Jackson (right) at last week's Grantmakers for Education's National Conference (AP Photo/John Smierciak)

This morning, Rev. Jesse Jackson hopped on board a bus with Fenger High School students from the Altgeld Gardens housing development in an attempt to bring attention to what Jackson calls "a state of emergency given patterns of violence and patterns of killing." Students from Altgeld Gardens were transferred to Fenger when their old school, Carver High School, was closed to be converted to a military academy. Residents and students claim the outbreak of violence at Fenger - including the brawl that resulted in the highly-publicized death of Derrion Albert - stems from tension between the Altgeld Gardens students and students from the "Ville" portion of the Roseland neighborhood that surrounds Fenger. Jackson said, "Parents are unanimous in wanting their students to walk to Carver...We must relieve them (the students) of the feeling of harm, the fear of death." [Tribune, CBS 2]