Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, has gathered 59 colleagues behind a letter asking the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate what the signers call a growing number of Black people found hanging in public across the country. At least 10 such hangings have been reported this year, the letter says.
The lawmakers say the deaths “raise significant suspicion of foul play, given the role of lynching in our nation’s history.” Each one, they wrote, “should be treated with the utmost seriousness and investigated without bias” by the DOJ and FBI.
What the letter asks for
Each investigation, the letter says, should include an independent autopsy, an audit of local and state police work, a review of physical and testimonial evidence, and a final report to Congress explaining the agencies’ findings.
The letter also wants better data collection, so that hanging deaths of Black people are tracked systematically and in the open.
The signers did not soften their language. “We know there is a long history of neglecting to prevent or investigate deaths of Black individuals,” they wrote. “Inaction by the federal government is tantamount to complicity.”
Signers named in coverage include Jasmine Crockett, Yvette Clarke, Ro Khanna, Summer Lee, LaMonica McIver, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Maxine Waters and Bennie Thompson. Ocasio-Cortez posted on September 10 that she was proud to have signed, citing “widespread modern-day lynchings.”
Pressley told theGrio: “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.” She added that the government “must conduct thorough and transparent investigations and get these families the answers and healing they deserve.”
The Mississippi case
The letter followed a similar one from Crockett, announced September 2, which cited what she called a pattern of Black Americans found hanging. Crockett pointed to the death of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old mother of four found hanging from a tree in Jackson, Mississippi, on August 3.
That case has since moved on. The conservative outlet Gateway Pundit reported that a 51-year-old Black man, Jarques Ratliff, has been charged with murder in Fortune’s death, and that her boyfriend, held early in the inquiry, was cleared. The outlet argued that Democrats had politicized the case.
