UPDATE: Mychal Bell was released on $45,000 bail this afternoon.

The Jena Six controversy continued today when a Louisiana prosecutor confirmed he would no longer seek an adult trial for Mychal Bell, a black teenager who once faced an attempted murder charge in the beating of a white classmate.

Bell has been in jail since December 2006, but according to Rev. Al Sharpton, he may be released as soon as today. Sharpton said bail has been set at $45,000.

Bell is one of six black Jena High School students arrested last December after a culmination of several fights between blacks and whites.

Many civil rights activists are angry because they feel the black students are being treated more harshly than three white students who hung nooses from an oak tree on high school property.

District Attorney Reed Walters said his decision not to continue trying Bell as an adult was not based on last week’s nation-wide rallies. An estimated 20,000 protesters joined Sharpton and Martin Luther King III to converge on the small town. The protest became one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in recent years.

On Tuesday, Bell’s mother, Melissa Bell, met in Washington, D.C., with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The Caucus is now asking the Justice Department to investigate possible civil rights violations in the Jena Six case.

With all of the publicity over the Jena Six case, the celebration of a major civil rights milestone might have been overlooked. This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the day nine black students integrated into all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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