Cases of Black people found hanged in the US South are a reminder of nation's lynching history

The death of a Black Mississippi woman found hanging from a tree has stirred distressing memories of the grim history of lynchings across the U.S. South.

The body of Tasia Fortune, 29, was found behind an abandoned home in Jackson, the state capital, on Aug. 3. Jarques Ratliff, 51, who is also Black, pleaded not guilty to murder on Monday. Police and prosecutors haven’t given a suspected motive and say more arrests are expected.

Regardless of the circumstances of the case, for many Black people, the imagery of a rope and noose evokes the legacy of lynching and vigilante violence against Black people in the U.S. and brings with it deep pain and trauma.

“Black folks down here in 2026, we are feeling and experiencing some of the same things we felt in 1956 and 1966 and that should not be happening,” Jackson activist Brad Franklin said of Fortune's death.

“But because it’s Mississippi and the racist history of our state, our skin has been toughened a lot to deal with it.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: September is National Suicide Awareness Month. This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

Fortune's mother, Christy Spivey, told The Associated Press that she doesn't believe race had anything to do with her daughter's death. Spivey is white. She said Fortune's father is Black.

“I think this is something very personal, very personal," Spivey said, insisting that someone who was acquainted with Fortune was involved.

Over the past two years, about a half-dozen Black women and men have been found hanged across the South. Police in some of those cases quickly deemed them suicides — often eliciting historically grounded skepticism when investigators provide limited evidence ruling out foul play.

“I say let the evidence show,” said Sean Joe, a professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis and a nationally recognized authority on suicidal behavior among Black people. “But if ... you go into a definition or a conclusion of suicide, you have to show some evidence for that.”

Spivey says she is certain her daughter would not have killed herself. “Absolutely not. Even if she could climb that tree, no, no, she would never, ever, ever,” Spivey said.

In Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, police are investigating the Aug. 21 death of Demetrius Eugene Fleming, 38. Police Chief Lawrence Wiggins said Tuesday that his office is waiting on reports from a medical examiner.

In February, police in Cobb County, Georgia, found the body of 21-year-old Kyle Bassinga in a park. While investigators said there was no indication of foul play, Bassinga’s death “caused many to think of the days of slavery and of Jim Crow,” said Cobb County Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid.

The September 2025 death of 21-year-old Black student Trey Reed at Mississippi’s Delta State University was ruled a suicide, as was that of Dennoriss Richardson, 39, in September 2024 in Alabama’s rural Colbert County.

Richardson’s wife, Leigh, has said she doesn’t believe he killed himself and, as has occurred in other cases, a private autopsy was conducted, finding his death consistent with a hanging, according to news reports.

Leigh Richardson told ABC News that despite chronic asthma and other breathing problems that would cause her husband anxiety attacks, “that is just not a way that he would even process to leave this world.”

More than 4,400 lynchings occurred in the U.S. between Reconstruction and World War II, according to the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative. The 1955 lynching of teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi over accusations he flirted with a white woman helped catalyze the civil rights movement.

“These were public, intentionally public in order to convey terror, not just to the individuals and their families, but to a whole community,” said Karlos Hill, professor of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of “Beyond The Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory.”

Nearly 60 members of Congress signed a letter in September demanding the Justice Department investigate hanging deaths of Black individuals and enforce the 2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime.

“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,” U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley said in a statement.

The Justice Department confirmed it received the letter but has not responded, according to the office of Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat and the letter’s lead author.

Trent Thompson, 58, of Florence, Alabama, says the recent hangings and deaths of Black people led to talk in the Black community about the death this summer of Nolan Xavier Wells.

Wells, 18 and Black, joined friends on a Fourth of July boat excursion to an island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast but did not return with them. His body was found two days later. Scrutiny of the investigation has deepened with the state's history of racist violence and distrust of law enforcement — triggering suspicion in the Black community toward many cases involving deaths of Blacks, Thompson said.

"I know the skin I’m in,” he said.

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Williams reported from Detroit and Hall from Marion, Kentucky. Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Washington contributed to this story.

Christy Spivey poses with a portrait of her late daughter, Tasia Fortune, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Marion, Ky. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Christy Spivey reflects on the life of her late daughter, Tasia Fortune, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Marion, Ky. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Christy Spivey hold baby pictures of her late daughter, Tasia Fortune, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Marion, Ky. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Christy Spivey poses with a portrait of her late daughter, Tasia Fortune, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Marion, Ky. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Christy Spivey wears a shirt with a portrait of her late daughter, Tasia Fortune, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Marion, Ky. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

United Nations-backed human rights experts said on Thursday there are “reasonable grounds” to believe the United States committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran on the first day of the war.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority condemned the U.S. decision to deny its officials visas needed to attend the upcoming U.N. General Assembly. And countries that recently signed a defense pact with Saudi Arabia are calling for the escalation in fighting in neighboring Yemen to end.

Here’s a look at the latest news in the Middle East on Thursday. Full coverage can be found here.

Human rights experts commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights body said their findings focus on a pair of U.S. strikes that killed at least 178 civilians, including women and children, on the first day of the war in Iran.

At least one U.S. missile hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, according to an Associated Press investigation. The Trump administration has yet to directly accept the blame or release findings of a Pentagon investigation into the school bombing.

The U.N.-backed team made the allegations of war crimes over the strike on the “clearly identifiable” school and another airstrike where missiles dispersed tungsten pellets over a “clearly identifiable sports complex and residential area” in the southern city of Lamerd.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the U.S. denial of visas for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other PA officials ahead of the U.N. General Assembly and called Israel’s actions “the real threat to the two-state solution and prospects for peace.”

The authority administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It also pushed back against U.S. accusations that it has glorified extremism and strayed from the path toward peace with Israel.

Its foreign ministry said it remained committed to long-stalled negotiations but defended its efforts to gain Palestinian recognition through international bodies and courts. The U.S. opposes the strategy, saying it “internationalizes” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and seeks to circumvent negotiations.

Israel will open the bidding for an additional 2,167 units in a settlement project that would effectively cut the West Bank in two, two days before elections on Oct. 27.

The new tender, which seeks bids from developers, would bring the total number of housing units for the E1 project to 3,401. The would effectively cut the West Bank in two. Critics say the planned settlement, on an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, would prevent the possibility of a Palestinian state in the territory.

The project will be “extremely difficult to reverse” under any future government, the Israeli rights group Ir Amim said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud ​Abbas condemned the new units as a violation of international law. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The E1 project was on hold for years due to U.S. pressure.

Syria will provide subsidized diesel fuel for heating and agriculture after sharp price increases sparked widespread protests this week.

The energy minister said Thursday that the government would set a tiered system of prices for diesel, with subsidized fuel being sold at 115 Syrian pounds ($0.94) per liter (35 ounces).

The government on Sunday announced price increases of 30% to 40% for gasoline and diesel, citing the U.S.-Iran war and repairs at a major oil refinery. In northeastern Syria, hundreds of oil trucks were stranded when protesters upset over prices blocked a highway.

Israel and Morocco said they will open embassies and expand relations established under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords, which saw four Arab countries normalize ties with Israel in 2020.

Israel and Morocco announced the move in a joint statement with the United States, saying that integrating Israel into the broader Arab world “will lead to peace, stability and shared prosperity.” The Abraham Accords were a marquee foreign policy achievement of President Donald Trump’s first term.

Pakistan and Turkey, which recently signed a defense pact with Saudi Arabia, have condemned the recent attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen against the kingdom.

Turkey's defense ministry described the pact as defensive in nature, focusing on collective deterrence, military cooperation and strengthening the countries’ defense capabilities. It said the signatories were working toward “institutionalizing” the alliance.

This piece will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

Colorful tree and flower decorations remain on the walls of a rubble-strewn classroom at Shajareh Tayyebeh school, damaged in a U.S. airstrike on Feb. 28, in Minab, southern Iran, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)