NEW YORK, Sept 20: A war of words between Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama and the civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson has erupted over a racially charged schoolyard beating in Jena, Louisiana.

Rev Jackson was quoted as saying by the media that Mr Obama was “acting like he’s white” for not speaking out more forcefully about the racial incident.

Jena is a mostly white town where racial animosity flared about a year ago when a black student sat under a tree that was a traditional gathering place for whites. A day later, three nooses — a symbol of the lynchings of black men that were carried out in the Old South — were found hanging from the tree.

Reports followed of racial fights at the school, culminating in the December attack on the white students.

But last Friday, a state appeals court threw out the only remaining conviction against one of the black teenagers accused in the December attack on a white schoolmate in Jena, which sparked protests.

On Wednesday’ (Columbia) State newspaper said Jackson made the comment about Obama after speaking Tuesday at Benedict College, a historically black school. “If I were a candidate, I’d be all over Jena,” Jackson said in his remarks after the speech, according to the published account.

“Jena is a defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment,” Jackson said. In 1965, demonstrators were attacked by police with billy clubs during a peaceful voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. “Bloody Sunday” shocked the nation and helped bring attention to the voting barriers that kept blacks from the polls.

On his part Mr Obama, in a statement late on Wednesday reacting to Jackson’s comment, said “outrage over an injustice” such as in the Jena case “isn’t a matter of black and white. It’s a matter of right and wrong.”

Obama cited earlier statements in which he “demanded fairness” and said they “were carefully thought out with input and support” from one of his national campaign chairmen — Jesse Jackson Jr., a Chicago congressman and son of the elder Jackson.

Obama said he hoped the decision would lead the prosecutor “to reconsider the excessive charges brought against all the teenagers in this case. And I hope that the judicial process will move deliberately to ensure that all of the defendants will receive a fair trial and equal justice under the law”.

An earlier statement, on Sept. 10, said: “When nooses are being hung in high schools in the 21st century, it’s a tragedy. It shows that we still have a lot of work to do as a nation to heal our racial tensions. This isn’t just Jena’s problem; it’s America’s problem.”