09/23/2026
I condemn the decision of the Mississippi grand jury not to indict anyone in the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells.
And no, I will not pretend that this happened in a vacuum.
We are living in a moment when Black history is being erased and sanitized, when the language of diversity and racial justice is under assault, when Black people are still being discovered hanging from trees and every such image carries the unbearable weight of generations of lynching, and when Black and brown immigrants are being swept up in aggressive detention and deportation operations. America is not moving through some post-racial moment. We are witnessing an increasingly hostile climate in which anti-Blackness is being normalized, repackaged and defended as though those of us who recognize it are the problem.
So when an 18-year-old Black boy goes away with friends and never comes home, when his body is later found, when injuries are documented, when his cause and manner of death remain undetermined, and when a Mississippi grand jury announces that nobody will be indicted, Black people have every right to ask questions.
Mississippi does not get the benefit of historical amnesia. This is the land where Emmett Till was murdered and his killers walked. Where Lamar Smith was murdered in broad daylight while working for Black voting rights. Where George W. Lee was murdered for organizing Black voters. Where Herbert Lee was shot and killed by a white state legislator. Where Mack Charles Parker was dragged from a jail and lynched.
Our ancestors learned the hard way that “no indictment,” “no wrongdoing” and “nothing to see here” have too often been the language that closed files without healing families or answering communities. Nolan Wells was somebody’s son. He was 18 years old. His parents deserve answers. His life deserves more than a closed door and a victory lap.
And Black people will not be bullied, mocked or shamed into silence for demanding to know how one of our children left home alive and ended up dead. We have seen too much history to stop asking questions now.
