*The debate rages over whether Mississippi high school football player Nolan Wells was the tragic victim of drowning. Or was he the victim of foul play? This brings back a painful memory for me. One that has been a cause of uncertainty and agony in my family for decades.
My cousin, like Wells, allegedly died from drowning. His body was found in the Mississippi River. Officials quickly ruled his death accidental. However, many of my family members weren’t convinced. He was known to be an excellent swimmer. But the greatest reason for doubt was that he had gone on his swimming outing with a group of whites he knew. None of them were injured. It wasn’t clear at the time just how promptly his associates had reported his death, or worse.
This certainly did not prove that my cousin was the victim of foul play. Nor that the perpetrators were his white companions. But it was more than enough to create doubt and suspicion about his death.
The controversy over Wells’s death is a near pitch-perfect carbon copy of the same grim and doubtful scenario that shadowed my cousin’s death. It’s also the same one that has fueled the controversy over the deaths of more than a few other young Blacks in recent years. All of them died under seemingly murky circumstances. Nearly a dozen of these deaths have drawn intense but brief media and public attention—and questioning.
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They had several things in common. They were young African Americans. They stirred intense speculation and anger that their deaths were anything but accidental. They put officials on the spot to prove that there was no foul play. In each case, authorities ultimately ruled their deaths as either accidental or self-inflicted. Their parents and relatives had no choice but to accept the official ruling that the deaths were anything other than accidental.
It’s precisely because of these circumstances that many Blacks have loudly cried foul about Wells. They are convinced that officials are covering up a murder.
It’s hard to say how many more official probes it will take before the parents of Wells believe that their son’s death was a horrid accident. They have hired a prominent attorney to raise questions. Several notables, including former NFL star Colin Kaepernick, are bankrolling the independent autopsy the family authorized. A bevy of civil rights activists have demanded answers. Legions of Blacks and others have burned up social media outlets charging cover-up and foul play in his death. They will never buy the at least initial response from officials of “no evidence of foul play.”
Once the dust settles Well’s death may indeed prove to be accidental. But that still won’t alter the painful reasons many say it isn’t. I say painful because of three things that weigh heavily on me and can never be erased.
The first, as mentioned, is the drowning death of my cousin under still questionable circumstances. He did not have attorneys, civil rights activists, and thousands of Blacks demanding answers to the cause of his death.
Officials quickly closed the case. It wasn’t said, but in that era, it was just routinely considered just another Black life gone and nothing special about it.
The second is the current Trump-fueled polarized racial climate. The ongoing assault on DEI, racial profiling, continuing dubious police shootings of young Blacks and Hispanics, and the grotesque racial disparities in the prison and criminal justice system. Many Blacks are firmly convinced that they are under sustained, venomous racial assault.
The third reason is the savage racial history of Mississippi toward Blacks. It was the runaway leader for decades in lynchings, assaults, bombings, and the imprisonment of Blacks, especially young Black males.
In nearly all cases, officials either turned a blind eye toward the violence or gave it the most cursory look and then a shrug off. That tortured history is still fresh in the minds of many Blacks.
The parents of Wells demand and deserve a thorough, impartial, and, most importantly, honest investigation into his death. Unlike him, my cousin never had that luxury. That’s why to this day my family members remain unconvinced about the cause of his death. The clamor over Wells death shows that other Blacks will always have the same feeling that something just wasn’t right about how their loved ones died.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is Trump’s Obama Obsession (Amazon ebook and Middle Passage Press)
He hosts the weekly news and issues commentary radio show The Hutchinson Report Wednesdays 6 PM PST 9 PM EST at ktymgospel.net.
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