Another Black Man Found Hanging In North Carolina [Op-Ed]

Over the last year, there’s been a disturbing rise in Black people being found hanged in southern cities. While a lot of the deaths have been ruled suicides, that hasn’t stopped Black people across the country from being suspicious, especially with the frequency with which it keeps happening. Sadly, there’s been another Black person found hanging, this time in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 

According to WRAL News, 38-year-old Demetrius Fleming was found hanging from a ligature in a home in Roanoke Rapids. Authorities haven’t ruled whether Fleming’s death came as a result of foul play, and they haven’t identified the ligature he was hanging from. 

“We’re treating this as an open, equivocal death investigation. The Roanoke Rapids Police Department is committed to finding the facts and reporting them,” Wiggins said. “This investigation is in its infancy, and it is important to neither make nor perpetuate assumptions as facts. The evidence will provide the conclusion; anything else will create more confusion.”

Fleming’s hanging death comes only a week after another Black man was found hanging from a tree in Raleigh. While police initially ruled that case a suicide, Wiggins says it remains to be seen if the two cases are connected. 

“It’s the elephant in the room, right? Now we have this particular incident. We can’t say they’re connected, and we don’t know the motivations behind why our incident occurred. It’s open. We’re pursuing every lead, and we can’t definitively say whether this was self-inflicted or whether this was malicious,” Wiggins told reporters. 

Over the last year, an alarming number of Black people have been found hanging from trees. Last September, Demartravion “Trey” Reed was found hanging at Delta State University. Earlier this year, Kyle Bassinga was found hanging from a tree in Fair Oaks, Georgia. Juliana Nzita was found hanging from a tree in Charlotte, North Carolina, in May of this year. Just this month, a Black woman was found hanging from a tree in Jackson, Mississippi. This is only a small fraction of the hanging deaths that have occurred in recent months. 

I can’t speak for all Black people, but generally, Black people don’t hang themselves from trees if they’re going to commit suicide. It’s a weird sentence, but suicide tends to be a solitary and intimate act usually done in a home. There are so many more efficient and less painful ways to kill oneself than hanging. Think about it. How often are white men and women found hanging from trees? In fact, I tried to find examples from recent years to see if I was off base, and I couldn’t find any. 

These hangings make it clear that there’s a rise in racial violence throughout the South, but local authorities continue not to take it seriously. I wonder why. 

But of course, America, especially the southern states, don’t want to reckon with the ongoing legacy of racist violence honestly. It’s much easier to see a Black person hanging in a tree and label it suicide instead of seeing it as an extension of the legacy. It also doesn’t help that we have a Justice Department completely uninterested in seeking justice for racial violence, unless, of course, it’s white people being attacked. 

So, as always, keep your head on a swivel, folks. If we can’t count on the authorities to protect us, then we have to do our best to protect ourselves. 

SEE ALSO:

Black Man Found Hanging From Tree In Raleigh Investigated As A Suicide

Black Woman Found Hanging From A Tree In Jackson, Mississippi