JENA, La.  In some ways, this town is still the same rural community it was a half-century ago, before integration pushed blacks and whites together in schools, workplaces and neighborhoods.

African-Americans, who are a little more than a tenth of the town's nearly 3,000 people, still live mostly in the two areas that have always been the black sections of town. They worship separately from white churchgoers. When they die, they are buried in the black cemetery.

Jena's residents, black and white, say such separation is typical of small towns — and some big cities — in the South. They say it doesn't justify a portrait of a town awash in racial hate, the portrait they think black activists and the news media have sent worldwide after a tense year that ended with six black teens charged with attempted murder for beating a white classmate in December.

Now Jena (pronounced JEEN-uh), which never experienced the marches of the 1960s civil rights movement, is about to see a replay of that movement. Tens of thousands of demonstrators, rallied by bloggers, newspapers and black radio hosts, are on buses heading for Jena from across the country. With leaders including Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King III, and hip-hop artist Mos Def, they'll rally at the courthouse steps Thursday on behalf of the teens who have come to be known as the "Jena Six."

The case has been overblown, some people say.

"I work with blacks and whites," says Linda McCartney, 41, a white second-grade teacher who has lived here all her life. "The majority of people get along."

Carol Brown, 35, a black home health aide, says, "Jena is a good place to live and call home. … There are some people who are prejudiced, but those who are not outnumber the ones who are."

Jena at one time was known as the home of some of Louisiana's largest sawmills. It has been struggling since the mills began to close in the 1950s.

Now Jena is known for the Jena Six. The charges followed a series of incidents that began at the start of school in 2006, when nooses were hung from a tree, a traditional gathering place for white students, after a black student asked to sit under it.

Last week, an appeals court overturned the first conviction. Mychal Bell, 17, had been scheduled for sentencing on Thursday. The prosecutor, Reed Walters, will appeal. Charges for three others have been reduced to aggravated battery.

Now, on the eve of a rally that organizers say may bring 40,000 people from across the country, Jena is mired in misunderstanding and distrust.

"A lot of people are frustrated," says Eddie Thompson, 46, Pentecostal pastor of the Sanctuary Family Worship Center. He is white. "Basically, it's the story of another town. You can understand someone watching TV and hearing different reports about a town so blindly racist, with trees for whites only and such, joining a march. I would join that march, too."

Residents black and white worry about the sheer numbers of people expected.

"We're scared to death" that violence may break out, says Billy Fowler, 68, a white school board member, as he drives through the town's only two stoplights. He says schools are closing because of worries about traffic backups.

Around the courthouse, a gift shop, diner and other businesses have posted signs to say they will be closed Thursday.

Brian Moran, 25, the acting president of Jena's newly formed NAACP chapter, says the rally will be peaceful and will call attention to how the Jena Six have been treated.

Jena has come a long way from the days when blacks couldn't live outside of certain sections and the Ku Klux Klan was active, says Harry "Cuz" Roberts, the white owner of LaSalle Florist.

Some blacks in Jena, though, say racism is a part of daily life.

Jim Douglas, 65, a black retired electrical engineer who returned to Jena 17 years ago after living in Las Vegas, says race relations have not changed much since he marched in Baton Rouge in the 1960s.

He lives in the Tall Timber Quarters, where poor blacks who worked for the mills used to live. The section, a mix of ramshackle trailers and well-kept homes, is still predominantly black.

"You still have the sense of the old deep South," he says. "They still have the good ol' boy system."

Brown says she hasn't had many problems in Jena, except for one area: how the law treats blacks.

Two years ago, Brown says, her daughter was convicted of disorderly conduct for a school fight even though one of her teachers backed up her statement that she wasn't there.

"Criminal justice and race are inextricably intertwined in the South," says Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He says the civil rights movement never reached Jena and other towns in north-central Louisiana.

One place where blacks and whites in Jena mingle easily is the football field.

Last week during Jena High School's homecoming, graduates cheered the Jena Giants, holding up signs showing the years they graduated. Principal Glen Joiner pointed out that blacks and whites who attended school together sat next to each other at the game.

"Would they all have come back if we had bad racial problems?" he asks.

On Monday, a hot, humid Louisiana evening, parents gathered to watch the junior varsity beat the Caldwell Parish Spartans 20-to-8. After the game, black and white players held hands and prayed.

"See that?" Joiner says. "That's what we're about. You see whites and blacks together in prayer. They're a team. That's a bond these kids have."

Enlarge By Tim J. Mueller for USA TODAY Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Stanley Griffin, right, listens as Jena, La., mayor Murphy McMillan addresses the media at the LaSalle Parish Courthouse.