21st Century Lynchings: America’s Old Silent Secret Is Alive

Another Black American has been found hanging in North Carolina.

His name was Demetrius Eugene Fleming.

Fleming, 38, was found dead Friday morning, August 21, in the 1900 block of Roanoke Avenue in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Police Chief Lawrence Wiggins said officers responded shortly after 6:45 a.m. following a call reporting an attempted suicide and discovered Fleming connected to a ligature. Emergency personnel responded, but Fleming was pronounced dead. Police have not announced a final determination of his manner of death, and Wiggins has said the investigation remains open while authorities await forensic findings, including an autopsy. Are we expecting evidence of things unsaid?

That distinction is important.

I am not declaring that Fleming was lynched. I am not declaring homicide without evidence. I am not claiming these recent deaths are connected.

But I am saying something America increasingly appears uncomfortable hearing:

Pay attention.

Because history demands that we do.

Only six days earlier, on August 15, a 32-year-old Black man was found hanging from a tree in downtown Raleigh. Raleigh Police Chief Rico Boyce later said surveillance footage showed the man alone and carrying an electrical cord, and investigators reported finding no evidence that another person participated. The case was being investigated as a suicide, with the Office of the Medical Examiner responsible for the final determination.

Earlier this year, 16-year-old Juliana Nzita was found hanging from a tree on property associated with the United House of Prayer in Charlotte. Police records reportedly classified her death as suicide, while questions surrounding the circumstances continued to circulate in the community. And in Mississippi, Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black mother of four, was found hanging outside a vacant house in Jackson on August 3. Her mother publicly questioned whether Fortune took her own life, and the case was sent to the Mississippi State Medical Examiner for examination.

These cases do not prove a conspiracy. They do, however, demand historical consciousness.

A TREE IS NOT JUST A TREE IN BLACK AMERICAN HISTORY

Name another form of racialized killing in American history so inseparably connected to one population, one region and one terrifying visual image.

For Black Americans, the image of a body hanging from a tree is not culturally neutral.

The Equal Justice Initiative has documented more than 4,400 racial-terror lynchings of Black Americans between 1877 and 1950, describing lynching as a mechanism of terrorism used to enforce racial hierarchy and intimidate entire Black communities. These killings were often carried out publicly and with little expectation that perpetrators would ever face meaningful punishment.

This is why Black Americans respond differently when another Black body is discovered hanging.

We are not inventing history.

We remember it.

And that memory becomes even more jarring when we compare the present with the decade most Americans associate with one of the most infamous lynchings in modern history.

The 1950s were the decade of Emmett Till.

Till was not killed simply by being hanged from a tree. He was abducted, brutally beaten and shot. His killers disposed of his body in the Tallahatchie River with barbed wire and a heavy cotton-gin fan tied around his neck. The National Park Service documents the brutality of his murder and the recovery of his mutilated body three days later.

That matters because Americans too often reduce lynching to one method: a rope and a tree.

Historically, lynching was broader than hanging. It meant extrajudicial killing—often mob killing—carried out without due process and frequently designed to terrorize an entire community.

Today, the disturbing comparison is this:

Historical records attributed to Tuskegee’s lynching statistics identify eight lynching victims nationally during the entire decade from 1950 through 1959.

We are now discussing reports of at least eight Black Americans found hanging in approximately one year.

Those two categories are not equivalent.

The historical victims were recorded as lynching victims. Several modern deaths have been officially classified as suicides or remain unresolved.

But the comparison should still stop America in its tracks.

The question is not:

“Can we call every one of these deaths a lynching?”

No.

The question is:

Why are so many Black Americans being found hanging, and are we giving every case the forensic scrutiny, transparency and national attention that such historically charged deaths deserve?

THE WORD “SUICIDE” CANNOT BECOME THE END OF THE CONVERSATION

When evidence establishes suicide, responsible historians, journalists and citizens must acknowledge that evidence.

But classification should follow investigation—not replace it.

Families deserve understandable answers concerning autopsies, toxicology, surveillance footage, digital evidence, ligature examination, witness interviews, scene reconstruction and forensic findings.

Demanding transparency is not the same as manufacturing guilt.

That is especially true in Fleming’s case.

Chief Wiggins has publicly recognized the historical implications surrounding the death of a Black man by hanging and has emphasized that investigators are not working from a predetermined conclusion. That is exactly the appropriate posture: follow the evidence wherever it leads.

America should establish that same standard everywhere.

WE FINALLY PASSED AN ANTI-LYNCHING LAW. NOW WHAT?

On March 29, 2022, after generations of failed congressional attempts, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act became federal law. It amended federal hate-crime law to provide penalties of up to 30 years in cases involving qualifying conspiracies that result in death or serious bodily injury.

But legislation is only meaningful if suspicious circumstances can first be recognized, investigated and proven.

What happens when the central dispute is whether a modern lynching occurred at all?

There should be a clear protocol for deaths that invoke America’s documented history of racial terror: rigorous evidence preservation, complete forensic examination, transparent communication with families, independent review when warranted, and federal civil-rights consultation where evidence supports it.

That is not racial paranoia.

That is historical due diligence.

WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE REQUIRE OF US?

The Bible does not instruct believers to ignore injustice for the sake of comfort.

The prophet Amos declared:

“But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” — Amos 5:24

Proverbs commands:

“Open thy mouth for the dumb… plead the cause of the poor and needy.” — Proverbs 31:8–9

And Scripture reminds us:

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” — Matthew 5:9

Justice and peace are not enemies.

Truth is what connects them.

Christianity does not permit us to manufacture evidence, accuse innocent people or answer racism with racism. But Christianity also does not require silence when human beings die under circumstances that demand explanation.

We can demand facts without creating facts.

We can respect grieving families while demanding competent investigations.

We can accept evidence of suicide when evidence proves suicide and still recognize why a Black body hanging from a tree carries an extraordinary historical weight.

AMERICA’S OLD SILENT SECRET

Lynching did not become morally unthinkable because Congress finally passed a law in 2022.

It became less public.

The crowds disappeared.

The postcards disappeared.

The carnival atmosphere disappeared.

But America's responsibility to recognize, investigate and confront racial violence did not disappear with them.

The Civil Rights Movement changed laws.

It did not erase memory.

And it certainly did not make history irrelevant.

Demetrius Eugene Fleming was more than the latest headline. Public memorial information identifies him as a husband, father, son, musician and church-community member.

His family deserves facts.

Juliana Nzita’s family deserved facts.

Tasia Fortune’s children deserve facts.

The Raleigh family deserves dignity and freedom from reckless speculation while investigators and medical examiners complete their work.

Every family deserves the same standard.

So say his name:

DEMETRIUS EUGENE FLEMING.

Do not declare what the evidence has not proven.

But do not look away either.

Because perhaps the most dangerous thing America can do with its history is convince itself that what happened before could never happen again.

Twenty-first-century America must be able to distinguish suicide from homicide, homicide from hate crime, and hate crime from lynching. But it cannot make those distinctions credibly unless it is willing to investigate every one of them with equal seriousness.

America’s old silent secret should never again be allowed to hide in plain sight.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Edmond W. Davis is a social historian, media strategist, professor, and documentary host. Davis is the founder of the National HBCU Black Wall Street Career Fest. A native of Philadelphia, PA, he, his wife, and his son currently live in the Little Rock, Arkansas, area. Davis is committed to cultural empowerment and educational equity through storytelling and civic engagement. In 2026, Davis was a grand marshal at the 38th Annual African American History Month Celebration Parade, the largest in the U.S. during Black History Month.

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