Thousands rallied Thursday in front of the LaSalle Parish Louisiana Courthouse, calling for justice for the Jena Six, but no one was home. The local government offices shut down on the day Americans from almost every corner of the country descended on the town in support of six black youths facing stiff penalties for a school fight with a white classmate.

Still, advocates say the hordes of people and the message they brought had to have had an impact on state and local officials responsible for handling the cases of Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw and an unnamed juvenile.

“Everywhere you looked there were people. In almost every inch of Jena, there were people,” said James Rucker of he California-based Color of Change. “People made Jena a priority. They came together, and it’s not like these were people from just an hour away. They were here from all over. It shows that the world is watching Jena, and everybody knows that these young men have been overly and excessively charged.”

Scores of college students bused in from across the nation said they wanted to make a stand for racial equality just as their parents did in the 1950s and '60s.

"It's not just about Jena, but about inequalities and disparities around the country," said Stephanie Brown, 26, national youth director for the NAACP, who estimated about 2,000 college students were among the throngs of mostly black protesters who overwhelmed this tiny central Louisiana town.

But the teens' case galvanized demonstrators as few legal cases have in recent years.

Jena, a town of 3,500 is in central Louisiana, about 40 miles from the nearest medium-sized city with an airport, Alexandria. About one tenth of the population of Jena is black, but Thursday, the size of the city and the demographics changed dramatically for a day.

People began massing for the demonstrations before dawn Thursday, jamming the two-lane highway leading into town and parking wherever they could. State police estimated the crowd at 15,000 to 20,000. Organizers said they believe it drew as many as 50,000.

The crowd broke into chants of "Free the Jena Six" as the Rev. Al Sharpton arrived at the local courthouse with family members of the jailed teens.

Sharpton told the Associated Press that he and Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif., Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and William Jefferson (D-La.) will press the House Judiciary Committee next week to summon the district attorney to explain his actions before Congress.

This could be the beginning of a 21st century's civil rights movement challenge disparities in the justice system, Sharpton said, adding that he planned a November march in Washington.

"What we need is federal intervention to protect people from Southern injustice," Sharpton told the AP. "Our fathers in the 1960's had to penetrate the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, we have to do the same thing."

The six black teens were charged a few months after three white teens were accused of hanging nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. The white teens were suspended from school but weren't prosecuted. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder. That charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.

Gennetter Smith and her family boarded a bus in the early morning hours Thursday with dozens from a Birmingham postal worker union. For Smith, going to Jena was just something she felt she had to do after learning about the situation.

“We didn’t get to march or anything like that, but we were there,“ Smith told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We were at the school. That is where they directed us to go. There were so many people, it was difficult to get to where everything was happening. Everyone who could get an audience was speaking out. My son James just went and sat under a tree."

A tree at that high school is the place where the most recent tension started last August. Black students sat under a tree that had been a traditional gathering place for white students. The next day, three nooses were hung from the tree.

Black parents protested to the LaSalle Parish Board of Education, but the incident was dismissed as a prank. The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days.

Several other incidents occurred over the next three months, and there was taunting back and forth between blacks and whites. Then came the fight on Dec. 4 between the six black youths and Justin Barker. Prosecutors said Barker was beaten and kicked by the black students. Originally five of the youths were charged as adults with attempted murder. Most of those charges now have been reduced.

Mychal Bell, who still sits in jail, is waiting to learn whether new charges will be filed against him. On Friday, an appeals court threw out his adult charges. And on Thursday it was announced that a bond hearing would be held for him within 72 hours.

Bell is the only one of the six who has remained in jail since the December arrest. The Parish prosecutor so far has maintained that Bell should remain locked up.

In a CNN broadcast and in a Wednesday press conference, District Attorney Reed Walters characterized the fight as an attack. He also said that the harm done to Barker is being overlooked by protesters.

Civil rights leaders say they don’t dispute the fact that the youths should faced some punishment for the fight, but that punishment should be just, says Sharpton. “You can not have a set of rules for blacks and another set of rules for whites,” he said.

That same message was repeated throughout the day, said J.B. Burton, a Deleware business owner. He flew to Louisiana on Wednesday, rented a car in Alexandria and drove to Jena.

“I wanted to be there. I didn‘t want to have to wait on a bus,” Burton told BlackAmericaWeb.com, adding that there were an estimated 1,000 buses in the town on Thursday. “Ice Cube brought in 10 buses from L.A. There were buses and people from all over the place."

Burton said he participated in the Million Man March and likened the spirit among the people on Thursday to that event.

“It was great,” he said. “We had to be there. If it is injustice for one, it is injustice for all.”

While Jena Six supporters were overwhelmingly black, young whites were also present.

"I think what happened here was disgusting and repulsive to the whole state," said Mallory Flippo, a white college student from Shreveport. "I think it reflected badly on our state and how it makes it seem we view black people. I don't feel that way, so I thought I should be here."

Other rallies in support of the black teens were held elsewhere, including Phladelphia and Oklahoma City, where about 500 people gathered.

"It is time for us to express our outrage that such a blatant injustice should happen," said Roosevelt Milton, Oklahoma City NAACP president.

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Associated Press contributed to this report.