As I was researching for "Always in Season,"
I found that there were dozens of cases of
Black people found hanging publicly since
2000 — since 1995, actually.
I started looking at the case of Antwan Sedgwick,
who was found hanging in Hampton, Virginia,
hours after the O.J. Simpson verdict.
And that case was ruled a suicide.
And so, there have been dozens of deaths,
and there, unfortunately, sadly, are not exact numbers.
There’s a CDC report that I’ve been looking
at that says that there have been 79 unsolved
hangings of Blacks and that they’ve all
been males, in this report, 79 hangings that
are unsolved between 2000 and 2016.
And so, you have all of these cases in the
midst of violence we know
that’s not being acknowledged.
If it weren’t for the outcry, the public
outcry, around Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, for
example, then the McDaniels, Travis and Gregory
McDaniel, and the accomplice would not have
been held accountable.
And so, there is a justified outcry.
Even when the result is a suicide, there’s
a justified outcry that comes out of the Black
community, but by anyone who’s paying attention
and concerned, that these might be lynchings.
I wanted to ask you about the case of “Tete”
Gulley, a Black transgender woman experiencing
homelessness who was found hanging in Portland,
Oregon.
It got a lot of attention recently, and, in
fact, it got so much attention that a lot
of people, including us, thought it had just
happened in May of this year, but it was actually
a year ago.
The local medical examiner ruled her death
to be a suicide, but her family believes she
may have been killed.
Now it’s getting renewed attention as a
result of the hangings in California, Texas
and New York have gained national attention.
So, as you point out, it is not only Black
men in these cases.
And talk about the significance of the renewed
interest in finding out what happened, investigating
“Tete” Gulley’s death.
Yeah.
I think it’s important to look at.
I also thought that the death happened on
May 27th of this year, but, in fact, it was
May 27, 2019.
And part of that reason is because the case,
the story, was dropped by the press in 2019
and then kicked up with these more recent
hanging deaths.
And so, this kind of invisibility that goes
with these hanging cases, in general, is even
greater with trans women, trans people, like
“Tete” Gulley, for whom the family still
believes that she didn’t commit suicide.
And the last news reports I saw on the case
were from 2019, until very recently.
And so, that’s just an example of how, when
we look — one is, when we look at these
cases individually, we’re not giving the
issues the attention that’s merited, the
issue about collectively what’s going on,
beyond just dropping in on one case and then
out when the police decide that they’ve
figured out or that they’ve investigated
enough, is that it’s important for journalists,
in particular, to look at all of it comprehensively
and in the context of historic lynching terrorism.
And so, just as with historic lynchings, certainly
Black men were the primary victims of lynching,
but women and children were also the victims
of lynching.
And can you talk about how these hangings
are often after some kind of horrific event,
like the police killing of Michael Brown in
2014?
Lennon Lacy, the case you looked at, at "Always
in Season," that happened right after that.
And then, of course, you have the killing
of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the police
uprising, and then these subsequent hangings.
And they also come after touchstones that
are racialized.
And so, there was an upsurge in noose incidents,
threats by noose, when President Obama campaigned
for the very first time.
Between 2005 and 2008, there was an upsurge
that was reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And so, there are these points in which there
is some momentum by the Black community, a
bit of progress, that’s met with backlash.
And there’s also these points in which there’s
this signaling from leadership that violence is OK.
And so, you have, out of this, all of this
violence that we see, and particularly Black
people and Brown people are really tuned into,
in ways that the mainstream
doesn’t necessarily acknowledge.
We see it.
We understand that there are connections between
what happens when police shoot Oscar Brown
in the back, when they murder George Floyd
on video, and these hangings, and that there
could possibly be a connection.
And so, the outcry, even when there’s a
suicide, is out of this sense of urgency that
all of these things, including the noose incidents
and all of these ways that Black lives are
threatened and minimized, they could very
easily result in lynching.
You also have the case in 2018 of the son
of a prominent Ferguson activist, Melissa
McKinnies, her son found hanging behind the
family home in Ferguson.
He was 24 years old.
She says he was lynched.
So, in all of these cases, what are you demanding
happens now, Jacqueline?
I think that they deserve a full investigation,
and that they — and given the context of
this history and given what people in communities
understand about the racial divisions in these
communities and the families’ concern, that
we look at them more than three days, that
they are — and then that they are looked
at as a whole, because whether or not these
are lynchings or whether or not they’re
suicides, is there — the question’s around:
Is there this new trend for Black people to
hang themselves publicly?
There’s been historically the stigma for
Black people about hanging, and certainly
hanging publicly and hanging from trees.
But if these are suicides, then that’s information
that’s really important to understand, in
addition to understanding what are the issues
around structural racism that can increase
depression and increase anxiety and the suicide
rate for Black people.
Those are all really important to understand.
So, you have, for example, Malcolm Harsch,
who was found hanging, and even though the
investigation hasn’t concluded yet because
of toxicology reports, you have him found
hanging at a homeless encampment.
And so there are issues about housing instability
and insecurity for Black people, in particular,
that are important to look at.
