Why Eyes On Mississippi Hangings/Drownings/Burning?

In September 2025, a group of student athletes found 18-year-old Delta State University student Trey Reed, who was Black, hanging from a tree on the campus in Cleveland, Mississippi. Of course, a Black person found hung in a state HISTORICALLY known for hanging Black people will raise an eyebrow. This case did just that. There was an outcry from the Black Community saying in unison, "Black people don't hang themselves!"

In 2026, the high-profile and publicly scrutinized case of a suspicious tree hanging in Mississippi involves Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black woman found dead on August 3, 2026, in Jackson, MS. Her death has drawn widespread attention alongside previous recent cases, renewing intense community and media concern regarding how authorities investigate these incidents. As you can guess, this hanging added to the fuel of a racially politicized and divided country our president and Republicans seem to insist upon. 

When the latest deaths of Black people are grouped together, suspicion grows. Tasia Fortune: Found hanging behind a vacant home on the Road of Remembrance in Jackson, MS; the investigation by the Jackson Police Department and the state medical examiner remains active. Demartravion “Trey” Reed: An 18-to-21-year-old Delta State University student found hanging from a tree on campus in September 2025, which local police ruled a suicide despite family doubts and calls for independent oversight. Cory Zukatis: An unhoused man found hanging in a tree in Vicksburg, MS, on the same day in September 2025, which was ruled a suicide by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner. 

Civil rights groups and reports have highlighted historical and regional patterns, pointing to multiple disputed hanging and drowning death investigations across the state over recent years that families and activists continue to question. Miss Fortune's death comes on the heels of an ongoing, racially charged, suspicious death of another young Black Mississippian, Nolan Wells. 

Since the Trey Reed death in September 2025, 13 more Black people have died under disputed circumstances, in hangings and drownings from Mississippi to Wisconsin to North Carolina to the nation’s capital From Trees to Water, Same Questions. Two of the most recent cases, an 18-year-old football player pulled from the Gulf of Mexico and a Dallas teenager left at the bottom of a lake, share a detail. Both young Black men went swimming or fishing with white companions and did not come home, as with Nolan Wells.

Wells traveled by boat to Horn Island, a barrier island inside the Gulf Islands National Seashore, in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on the afternoon of July 4 with a group of friends, some of them white, to celebrate Independence Day, authorities said. He never made it back to the mainland. His mother reported him missing that night. A park ranger found his body in the water off the island’s northwest shore two days later.

The Wells family disputes that Nolan, described by his father, Elmore Wonsley, as a strong swimmer, would have drowned there. Crump said the family commissioned an independent autopsy in Washington, D.C., funded by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who also paid for a second autopsy in Reed’s case. Sharpton questioned the racial dynamics of the case. “He was one Black teen with three young white men who happened to end up with his phone,” he told reporters. “There’s just too many questions.” 

The Congressional Black Caucus has expressed similar frustration and highlighted a lack of transparency. On Monday August 10, its members wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel to ask for a federal review of Wells’ death. “The lack of answers thus far continues to fuel speculation and grief,” the letter states. “Neither the Wells family nor the public should be left to fill an information vacuum with speculation.” Blanche and Patel were asked to respond within a week, U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia said at the Thursday, August 13, news conference. 

White Mississippians are also angry. Most are angry at Mississippi being called a racist state in 2026. There are hundreds of online posts testifying to the great relations between Blacks and Whites. Silence does NOT mean the ABSENCE of and yes, Mississippi continues to need watching. The election of Donald Trump has made many comfortable with racism. It is no longer behind closed doors. Our president puts racism on full display almost daily. The reaction of the Bible Belt states seems to be, "We've been waiting on this forever," no matter what their mouths may say.

Views on racism among white people in Mississippi are mixed. While some white political leaders and residents deny the existence of SYSTEMATIC racism, others acknowledge ongoing racial disparities, and opinions vary widely across different communities, generations, and regions of the state. Mississippi does not register voters by political party, but statewide voting patterns and polls show that roughly 52% to 58% of the electorate leans Republican. In recent presidential elections, the Republican nominee consistently wins around 58% of the vote. 

Donald Trump received 60.9% of the vote in Mississippi. Trump State Approval: Polling indicates around 49% approval and 46% disapproval for Trump in Mississippi. Republican Base Context: National tracking shows roughly 55%–65% of active Republicans embrace the explicit "MAGA" identifier, rather than just the broader party label. 

 Perspectives Denying or Minimizing Systemic Racism

Political rhetoric: Prominent state figures, including Governor Tate Reeves, have publicly asserted that systemic racism does not exist in Mississippi or the United States. 
Focus on progress: Many conservative residents argue that the state has moved past its Jim Crow history, emphasizing interpersonal southern hospitality, economic modernization, and integrated communities as proof that modern racism is rare or exaggerated. 
Individual vs. systemic view: A common perspective among many white conservatives attributes remaining social or economic disparities to individual choices rather than historical or institutional structure.

While there is no exact real-time census tracking every individual belief, broad national and statewide public opinion data indicates that an overwhelming majority—typically around 80% to 85%—of Black adults in Mississippi and across the U.S. believe that racism remains widespread and persistent. Comprehensive polling from organizations like Gallup routinely shows that roughly 83% of Black Americans view racism against Black people as a prevalent, systemic issue.

Upon taking office in 2025, Trump began his immediate attack on Black America. If you have been living in America for the past year, you know all of the attacks Black America has endured and continues to endure under this administration. RACISM is alive and well in MISSISSIPPI because it never went anywhere.

This makes unexplainable deaths of Black people in Mississippi suspect. The racist history never ended. The latest two deaths, by hanging and drowning, hit the Black community a little harder these days knowing the rising racial temperature happening in America. It appears SOMEONE needs to keep an eye on MISSISSIPPI. The OUTRIGHT denial of RACISM by White Mississippians is not helping this problem. Either there IS a problem or there isn't a problem. We ARE Mississippi burning right about now with all of this undercurrent of racial mistrust.

Raynard Johnson, 17

June 16, 2000

Raynard Johnson was found hanging from a pecan tree in his front yard in Kokomo, Miss. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation called the hanging a suicide, according to records. But his family believes Johnson was lynched, Jefferson said.

In 2000, the Rev. Jesse Jackson traveled to Mississippi to call attention to Johnson’s hanging.

Nick Naylor, 23

Jan. 9, 2003

Three years later, Nick Naylor, 23, was found hanging from a tree about 11 miles from his house in Porterville, Miss. A dog chain was wrapped around his neck. Police ruled the death a suicide, but an attorney for the family said it was a lynching.

“Every time someone loses their life in a hate crime, it opens up the wound,” said Lequicha Naylor, 43, Naylor’s sister. “We have no closure. His killers are probably still around here, walking around. I have little Black boys. I’ve got grand boys — kids walking around the same place where my brother got hung. And we had tell them what happened for their own protection. One thing we always wonder is what they did to him before he died.”

Roy Veal, 55

April 22, 2004

A year later, Roy Veal, was found hanging from a pecan tree near Woodville, Miss. Relatives said Veal was found with a hood over his head. A state police spokesman told reporters Veal’s death was “consistent with suicide.” Relatives said they believed Veal, who had returned to Mississippi to fight for his family’s land, was lynched. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office in Woodville said the case is with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

Frederick Jermaine Carter, 26

Dec. 3, 2010

Frederick Jermaine Carter was found hanging from a tree limb in a White neighborhood in Greenwood, Miss. The state medical examiner ruled Carter’s death a suicide. Relatives called it a lynching and demanded for a federal investigation.

Derrick Johnson, then-state president of the Mississippi NAACP, told reporters that the community had “lost all confidence in the ability of local law enforcement to investigate” the case of Carter’s hanging. He called on the Justice Department to investigate.

Craig Anderson, 49

June 26, 2011

One of the most graphic examples of a modern-day racial terror killing occurred on June 26, 2011, when 10 white teenagers killed 49-year-old James Craig Anderson in Jackson, Miss.

The teenagers, who according to court records, decided to “go f---k with some n-----s,” ran over Anderson in a parking lot while yelling “white power.”

That night two carloads of White teenagers drove into a motel parking lot where they spotted Anderson, according to records. Some teens jumped out of the cars and started beating Anderson, in an attack captured on a surveillance video.

In March 2012, three of the teenagers — identified as Deryl Dedmon, John Rice and Dylan Butler — pleaded guilty in federal district court to charges of conspiracy and committing a hate crime.

During a sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves connected the killing of Anderson to the state’s gruesome history of lynchings, telling the courtroom that “a toxic mix of alcohol, foolishness and unadulterated hatred caused these young people to resurrect the nightmarish specter of lynchings and lynch mobs from the Mississippi we long forget.”

Reeves said the group of White teenagers targeted Black neighborhoods in Jackson, “for the sole purpose of harassing, terrorizing, physically assaulting and causing bodily injury to Black folk.”

Otis Byrd, 54

March 19, 2015

Otis Byrd, who had been missing since March 2, 2015, was found hanging from a tree on March 19, 2015, in Port Gibson, Miss.

The Claiborne County sheriff’s office said Byrd was found with a bedsheet wrapped around his neck. Byrd had been convicted in 1980 of murder in the death of a White woman, according to the Mississippi Department of Corrections. He had been paroled in 2006.

The FBI and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched an investigation. In 2015, the Justice Department released a statement regarding Byrd’s death saying that investigators had found no foul play.

“After a careful and thorough review, a team of experienced federal prosecutors and FBI agents determined that there was no evidence to prove that Byrd’s death was a homicide,” the Justice Department said.

Phillip Carroll, 22

May 28, 2017

Phillip Carroll was found hanging from a tree in Jackson, Miss. Police called the death a suicide. Early reports said Carroll had been found with his hands tied behind his back. Police denied that account.

“If there’s any other information or evidence that anyone may have to make us believe that it may not be a suicide, again, we’re open to any information and any evidence to aid us in the investigation,” Jackson Police Commander Tyree Jones told reporters. “But as of right now, we don’t have anything other than the fact that his death has been ruled a suicide.”

Deondrey Montreal Hopkins, 35

May 5, 2019

Deondrey Montreal Hopkins, who lived in Columbus, Miss., was found hanging from a tree on a bank of the Luxapallila Creek. Columbus Police Chief Fred Shelton said Hopkins’s death was not a homicide.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the case.