Mississippi Hanging Death Stirs Painful Echoes of US Lynching History

The death of a 29-year-old Black woman found hanging from a tree in Jackson, Mississippi, has revived painful memories of the lynching era across the American South, even as investigators have yet to establish a motive.

The body of Tasia Fortune was discovered on August 3 behind an abandoned home in the state capital. Jarques Ratliff, 51, who is also Black, pleaded not guilty to murder on Monday. Police and prosecutors have not disclosed a suspected motive and say further arrests are expected.

For many Black Americans, the image of a rope evokes a long history of vigilante violence. More than 4,400 lynchings took place in the United States between Reconstruction and World War II, according to the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative. The 1955 killing of teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi helped galvanize the civil rights movement.

"Black folks down here in 2026, we are feeling and experiencing some of the same things we felt in 1956 and 1966 and that should not be happening," said Jackson activist Brad Franklin. "But because it's Mississippi and the racist history of our state, our skin has been toughened a lot to deal with it."

Fortune's mother, Christy Spivey, who is white, said she does not believe race played a role in her daughter's death. She described it as "something very personal" and said she believed someone acquainted with Fortune was involved. Spivey, whose daughter's father is Black, said she was certain Fortune would not have taken her own life.

Over the past two years, about a half-dozen Black men and women have been found hanged across the South. In several cases, police quickly classified the deaths as suicides, drawing skepticism when little evidence was made public.

"I say let the evidence show," said Sean Joe, a professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis and a national authority on suicidal behavior among Black people. "But if ... you go into a definition or a conclusion of suicide, you have to show some evidence for that."

In Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, police are investigating the August 21 death of Demetrius Eugene Fleming, 38. Police Chief Lawrence Wiggins said his office is awaiting medical examiner reports. In February, police in Cobb County, Georgia, found the body of 21-year-old Kyle Bassinga in a park; investigators said there was no indication of foul play, though County Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid noted the death "caused many to think of the days of slavery and of Jim Crow."

The September 2025 death of 21-year-old student Trey Reed at Delta State University in Mississippi was ruled a suicide, as was that of 39-year-old Dennoriss Richardson in Alabama's Colbert County in September 2024. Richardson's wife, Leigh, has said she does not believe he killed himself, and a private autopsy found his death consistent with a hanging.

Karlos Hill, a professor of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of "Beyond The Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory," said such killings were "public, intentionally public in order to convey terror, not just to the individuals and their families, but to a whole community."

Nearly 60 members of Congress signed a letter in September urging the Justice Department to investigate hanging deaths of Black individuals and to enforce the 2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime. Representative Ayanna Pressley, the Massachusetts Democrat who led the effort, said: "In this moment of anti-Blackness and emboldened white supremacy, we cannot stand idly by while the strange fruit of Black bodies hang from trees across the country." The Justice Department has confirmed receiving the letter but has not responded.

In Florence, Alabama, Trent Thompson, 58, said the recent deaths have prompted discussion in the Black community about the case of Nolan Xavier Wells. Wells, 18, joined friends on a Fourth of July boat trip to an island off Mississippi's Gulf Coast but did not return; his body was found two days later. Thompson said scrutiny of the investigation has deepened distrust of law enforcement in cases involving Black deaths. "I know the skin I'm in," he said.

_If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988._