I remember every time the country reminded me I was African American. I was born in New Orleans in the early 70s. My parents grew up in the racist belly of Mississippi. They heard of lynching. They had friends who lost parents to a bullet. Why? They were trying to vote. Homes burned to cinders by racists filled with smoldering hatred for a people who only wanted freedom from fear and an honest chance to make it.

That’s my parents' history, which is my history.

I grew up in the 80s. I enjoyed all the freedoms the generation before me fought for, but even with all the progress from the Civil Rights Movement, hatred and racism in the South were still rampant. It didn’t dissolve into oblivion after King lost his life on a Memphis hotel balcony.

It morphed and became more insidious and hidden.

The wrong conversation or situation with a white person will remind you that you are black, especially in the South

It happened to me twice growing up in New Orleans.

The first time was the Summer of 1985.

The day was classic NOLA. Humidity wrapped around us like a hot, wet blanket while the heat tried to hammer our teenage bodies into submission. I was 14, and the summer still felt fresh, like biscuits on a southern morning.

My friends were all young Black boys like me, and we rode our bikes along the canal bank. We did it often, without trepidation in our young, innocent hearts.

We paused along the street that ran parallel with the canal. I can’t remember why we stopped. Maybe to gibber jabber like young teenage boys do.

“Swoop” was the sound as a rock zipped between us. It clattered onto the pavement. We looked across the canal, and a group of white boys was standing at the end of their street.

The neighborhood over there was mostly white. We stared in disbelief that they were actually throwing rocks at us. They threw a few more before they pulled out the heavy ammunition: the “N” word.

These young white boys were well educated in bigotry. The racial slur flowed out of their mouths effortlessly. We had done nothing to them. Our only offense was existing.

My companions had heard a few slurs for white people as well. The classic cracker or honky was hurled back, but those didn’t carry the same pain or history.

They continued with hurling rocks along with the slurs. We slung a few back, but we eventually gave up and sped off on our bikes.

As I wrote earlier, we did nothing to them. We were easy targets, but, in classic coward fashion, they knew we couldn't do anything.

That experience stayed with me all summer.

The next reminder of who I was in America arrived later that same year, while I was driving through a neighborhood with my parents.

My father was anxious to sell our little pink house for a larger one in a better neighborhood. In my young opinion, it wasn’t that bad. However, cracks were beginning to appear in small pockets of our “hood,” so I think he wanted to sell before property values plummeted and it wasn’t worth it. My mother agreed, but my dad was determined to find something better.

We were in a particular neighborhood. I can’t remember where it was. However, I recall what happened clearly. I was sitting next to the window, and my mother was in the middle. I heard a “Pow” as a rock hit the side of my dad’s light blue pickup.

I looked out the window, and I saw a white kid standing on the sidewalk. He threw the rock that hit our car. Why?

I was in his white space; how dare we drive through that neighborhood? We negros were not welcome, and he had to let us know.

Those incidents taught me a lot about what it meant to be black in America.

The price of the skin I’m in

We as African Americans have paid a heavy price to be part of this country. Our lives and history are fraught with the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, the crack epidemic, and mass incarceration. Most Black people share this experience. It’s a collective and historical trauma.

The weight of slavery, segregation, and ongoing systemic racism still lingers in ways that impact emotional well-being, identity, and connection. These realities often remain invisible to people outside the community, but they live quietly in families, histories, and even the body.

The quote above is from My Therapy NYC.

We are the victims of a racist system, and it manifests in various ways in our communities.

The reaction to the Nolan Wells case is a current example of how our trauma shapes how we view the case.

The South’s history is well known. The stains of the Civil War, Jim Crow, and monuments to slave holders linger on the collective consciousness of that region of America.

A short history of Mississippi: Nolan Wells’ home

In 1860, the census counted enslaved persons in the South. My ancestors were counted as three-fifths of a person for congressional representation, so they had to count the ones in bondage. The state of Mississippi had the third-largest population of enslaved people. 436,731 human beings suffered under the lash of slavery. That’s the size of a small to medium city. Imagine an entire city filled with people who, for all intents and purposes, were chattel; the property of another.

August 28th, 1955, two monstrous citizens of the state of Mississippi by the names of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam slaughtered 15-year-old Emmett Till in the small town of Money. They beat him unmercifully, shot him in the head, tied a cotton gin fan to his feet, and threw Mamie Till’s baby into the river and walked away. Why?

Because allegedly he whistled at Roy Bryant’s wife. We found out years later, when she was 72, that she lied. However, even if he did, he should not have lost his life. These are the type of racists that have come out of that state. Today, African Americans talk about Till. We can feel the collective trauma of that young boy and his mother. As a race, we have not forgotten that event. Some people are still alive who remember it.

When a young boy goes missing like Wells, that memory of Till influences our feelings about what happened to that young man on that Mississippi island on the 4th of July.

Mississippi lynched 581 African Americans between 1877 and 1950. When compared to other states in the South, Mississippi lynched the most human beings. There were 4400 racial terror lynchings between Reconstruction and WWII. However, the state where Nolan lost his life spilled the most innocent blood. I am not stating that the young man was lynched. However, the sheer amount of black lives slaughtered in the hilly pine forests of the Magnolia State creates a bitter taste in the back of a black person’s throat. A dryness crosses the palate as the life of another black person is lost mysteriously. Racism is the first thing to come to mind. When only white people return, it raises a red flag in our African American communities.

On June 12th, 1963, Medgar Evers, a 37-year-old civil rights activist in Jackson, Mississippi, was assassinated. He was a key figure in the fight to secure voting rights for Black people in the South. He was admired and hated at the same time. He was walking up to his home like most of us do every day when a bullet pierced his back. He fell onto the steps of his home where his wife and children found him bleeding out.

The man who killed this young Civil Rights war horse was Byron De La

Beckwith, a known Klansman and segregationist. His prints were on the gun, and the sight hit him in the eye, causing a bruise. The FBI had him by the nape of his neck. However, the history of Mississippi reared its ugly head, and two white juries failed to return a verdict. It took 31 years to convict him.

For 31 years, he enjoyed his freedom while Medgar’s children grew up without a father. His wife, Myrlie, became a widow because of another man’s vile hate. However, she got justice, but she had to go get it. If she hadn’t worked to reopen the case, that monster would’ve died a free man.

This is Mississippi, and why Nolan Well’s parents and hundreds of thousands of Black Americans are suspicious and want real answers in this young man’s death.

The cost of the skin I’m in can be my life

Being a black person in America isn’t easy. The lives of black people don’t matter in this country. We are disposable and don’t always deserve the same justice as white’s in this country. Nolan Wells is dead, and no one in Ocean Springs but his parents seems to care that a bright, talented young man is deceased.

The African American community is suspicious for good reason. Mississippi has devoured too many black bodies for antennas not to raise in our communities. Black and white social media influencers are keeping his name on the nation's lips. The soil is soaked in blood and speaks to the masses that Nolan’s death is at least suspicious. As I said previously, when all the white friends return but the only black friend disappears and is found dead, that leads to questions.

Mississippi history is American history, and it will always rear its head when suspicious Black deaths occur.

Thanks for reading, and peace.