September 15—Campus personnel found the body of Demartravion “Trey” Reed, a 21-year-old Black student at Delta State University in Mississippi, hanging from a tree.

Following the discovery, university police indicated that there were no signs of foul play. The Delta State Police Chief stated that there was no indication of continued threats to students or faculty and that they were being assisted by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations, as well as local police and sheriff’s deputies.

Given Mississippi’s history of racist violence against Blacks, the initial news report about a “Black man found dead hanging from a tree” read like a Jim Crow-era lynching. Online Rumors spread suggesting that Reed’s body was discovered with shattered bones, which contradicted the campus police’s claim that there was “no foul play” and a cover-up was taking place.

The police commissioner said, “We haven’t had a documented case of a lynching in decades. So, when somebody jumps to that conclusion, I would believe that they’re just trying to get the clickbait and get you to come look at their stuff.”

The county coroner disproved the rumors. The office concluded the student did not suffer any lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, broken bones, or injuries consistent with an assault.

September 16—Nationally known civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump announced that Reed’s family retained him because they were deeply concerned and demanded answers. Crump indicated that he will work with other civil rights organizations to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation.

September 18—The local police stated the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s autopsy findings are “consistent with the initial investigation, determining the cause of death to be hanging and the manner of death as suicide.” 

Reed’s family questioned the autopsy results. 

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick volunteered to cover the cost of an independent autopsy. In a statement, the NAACP said, “While initial reports offered no evidence of ‘foul play,’ you’d have to excuse our skepticism amidst growing racially motivated violence targeted at our communities across this nation. So, while we await more formal autopsy reports and information, we offer this piece of history with a level of certainty: Our people have not historically hung themselves from trees.”

Michael Curtis, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, has researched Black men and suicide. He was skeptical of Reed’s suicide, citing gun violence as the most predominant method among Black men and that “hanging is very uncommon.”
According to data from the National Violence Death Reporting System, 2,308 Black men committed suicide in 2020. 60 percent died from gunshot wounds—like Professor Curtis explained.

However, 24 percent of suicides were due to asphyxiation or hanging, with the majority taking place in a home or apartment; fewer were found in jail cells. Of the 2,000 suicides among Black males, just 34 occurred outside, with only 10 occurring in a tree or natural area.

Professor Curtis was right that suicide by hanging is uncommon for Black men, but the official ruling that Reed’s death was a suicide would be easy to believe if the NAACP, Black academics, Black Lives Matter, and the Black media had acknowledged the rise in suicides in Black America over the past decade.

 In 2015, JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association) published an alarming study titled “Suicide Trends among Elementary School-Age Children in the United States.”

It indicated that suicide is the leading cause of death among children younger than 12, and the number of Black children—mostly boys—under 12 that have committed suicide doubled from 1993 to 2012.

The researchers added, “To our knowledge, this is the first national study to observe higher suicide rates among US Black individuals compared with White individuals.”

In 2020, MD/PhD Joshua A. Gordon, the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wrote, “One often overlooked aspect of the rising rates of suicide in the U.S. is its impact on youth—and in particular, its impact on Black youth. Black people face increased rates of risk factors, including experiences of racism, higher rates of unemployment and financial and food insecurity, disparities in other aspects of health, and limited access to care, all of which result in an increased burden of mental illness in Black communities. Despite this heavy burden, Black people and individuals in other racial and ethnic minority groups have historically had relatively low rates of suicide. But this has been changing recently, especially for Black youth. As of 2018, suicide became the second leading cause of death in Black children aged 10-14 and the third leading cause of death in Black adolescents aged 15-19.”

According to the Substance and Mental Health Services Administration, suicide rates among Black youth aged 10 to 24 have increased by roughly 37 percent between 2018 and 2021.

Reed’s death should draw attention to the disturbing suicide rate among Black youth in America, rather than serving as a reminder of the country’s racist past.