OP-ED: Recent suspicious hanging deaths of Black people are reminders that past is prologue

First, there was the hanging death of To’Nea Nicole Miller on June 18 in Miami, a day before Juneteenth. Then on Aug. 3, Tasia Fortune was found hanging from a tree behind an abandoned house in Jackson, Miss. Usually, when we learn of lynchings, the victims are Black men, not young Black women — Miller was 27 and Fortune was 29.

According to an investigation by the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office and the county medical examiner in Miller’s death, no evidence was found of foul play. The circumstances of her death, they concluded, were “consistent with a suicide.”

An investigation continues into the death of Fortune, the mother of four, whose body is in the custody of the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office. There, an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause and manner of death. Her mother, Christy Spivey, told ABC News that she last saw her daughter on July 26 and described her as a loving mother with no behavior out of the ordinary. “She did not do this to herself,” Spivey said. “I know my daughter, and she did not do this to herself.”

A Black man, Terence Anderson, said to be a person of interest in her death, has been arrested on an unrelated charge with a bond set at $250,000. Detained as a felon in possession of a firearm, Anderson has denied any involvement with her death, though admitted he had been in an argument with her.

As in Fortune’s death, Miller’s sister, Teri, has rejected the conclusion of suicide, though Miller’s aunt, Michele Howell, after discussions with the medical examiner and an investigator on the case, told NBC “it was suicide.”

These and others, including Demartravion “Trey” Reed, 21, who was found last September hanging from a tree on the Delta State University campus in Cleveland, Miss.; Kyle Bassinga, 21, who went missing before he was found hanged in February in a Cobb County, Ga., park, and Jerard “Jay” Jackson, 28, an Illinois man who was found dead after attending a music festival in Michigan. These cases and several more were said to show no evidence of an attack. But the suspicion is still growing, given the history of lynchings in this country.

In the front-page story of our paper last week, we discussed a new book on the killing of Elbert Williams in 1940 in Brownsville, Tenn. All of this coheres with the notion of “past as prologue,” a theme often focused on Imhotep Gary Byrd’s weekly radio broadcasts, and we certainly will delve into it during our future shows.

It is impossible to have a conversation about this topic without citing “100 Years of Lynchings” by Ralph Ginzburg. So, stay tuned.