Black Americans Found Hanging Across The Country—Now Families Want Answers

For Black Americans, the image of a Black person hanging from a tree is never just an image.

It carries the weight of generations of racial terror, public lynchings and families who were denied justice. Now, after several Black people have been found hanging across the country, families and lawmakers are demanding answers.

Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and 59 of her congressional colleagues recently sent a letter to the Department of Justice and the FBI calling for comprehensive federal investigations into hanging deaths involving Black people.

According to the lawmakers, at least 10 such deaths have been reported in 2026, involving people as young as 18 and spanning states including Mississippi, Michigan and New York.

The circumstances surrounding those deaths vary significantly. Some have been ruled suicides by authorities, while families in several cases have publicly questioned those findings. The available evidence does not establish that the deaths are connected or that all were acts of racial violence.

But one recent case illustrates why families are asking investigators to look deeper.

On August 3, 29-year-old Tasia Fortune was found hanging from a tree behind an abandoned home in Jackson, Mississippi. Numerous questions and widespread speculation initially surrounded the death of the mother of four. Authorities have now ruled her death a homicide. [Mississippi has the highest recorded number of lynchings in the United States, with 581 documented deaths between 1882 and 1968, according to The Washington Post.] 

Jackson police Detective Samuel Dukes testified that investigators believe Fortune was killed before her body was placed in the tree. Police have described the hanging as a “staged” event and said they believe her death stemmed from a dispute involving drugs.

Three men, Jarques Ratliff, Earnest Lloyd, Jr. and Eric Clark, have been charged with murder. Ratliff has pleaded not guilty. On September 30, a judge found probable cause for his case to proceed to a Hinds County grand jury. Police have said additional arrests could follow.

Authorities have not said Fortune’s killing was racially motivated or that her body was intentionally positioned to resemble a lynching.

Still, the circumstances surrounding her death have struck a nerve, particularly in Mississippi, where the legacy of lynching remains deeply embedded in the collective memory and continues to shape the fear and unease such discoveries can evoke.

That history is part of why lawmakers are demanding additional scrutiny on the cases. In their letter, they urge federal authorities to conduct independent autopsies with families’ permission, audit state and local investigations, review physical and testimonial evidence, and share their findings with Congress. They are also calling for improved federal data collection surrounding hanging deaths involving Black people.

The demand isn’t that every death be automatically classified as a lynching. It is that each death receives the thorough investigation, transparency and scrutiny necessary to establish the facts and determine what actually happened.

For families left behind, that distinction matters. They are not simply asking America to remember its history; they are demanding that authorities make sure that history isn’t allowed to overshadow the truth.