Tasia Fortune was
found hanging behind a vacant home in Jackson, Mississippi this August. She was 29 years old. Her body had been there for days before anyone noticed, and the circumstances around her death have yet to be determined by an autopsy. Three months earlier, 16 year old
Juliana Umba Nzita was found hanging from a tree behind a church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her case was closed within days, ruled a suicide. Fortune's family and Juliana's family are both left without real answers about their loved ones' deaths, and
neither believes suicide is the full story.Sign the petition telling the U.S. Department of Justice to open independent investigations into these deaths and create a task force to review how hanging deaths of Black Americans get ruled suicides.While Tasia's case is still open and active, authorities have said nothing about suspected foul play. Juliana's death was ruled a suicide within days, without a full autopsy and without authorities ever finding her phone, two shocking oversights.
Local investigators' inability – or unwillingness – to take these deaths seriously is infuriating.Black individuals in the American South dying by hanging is a chilling reminder of the Jim Crow era, when thousands of Black men, women, and children were lynched by brutal white mobs. While the Civil Rights Movement wiped out Jim Crow laws, the racially motivated violence of that era absolutely still shapes the United States today. The justice system must recognize that and work to solve it before more Black folks die.
The deaths of Tasia and Juliana are part of a larger, concerning trend. A college student in Cleveland, Mississippi was found dead, hanging from a tree on his campus last fall. Within days, his death was ruled a suicide. In 2018, a 21-year-old man was found hanging from a tree in his white girlfriend's yard after they had quarreled. That was also ruled a suicide, despite his family's doubts. A 54-year-old man went missing for weeks in 2015; he was eventually found hanging by a bedsheet from a limb that was 12 feet in the air. His death was ruled a suicide; his relatives are beyond skeptical.
Local police departments keep closing these cases fast and offering families little explanation. That leaves grieving families to fight for basic answers on their own, often years after the fact. A federal investigation would bring resources and independence that local departments have shown they either lack or refuse to use. A standing DOJ task force would mean these cases get a real forensic review the first time, not years later when evidence is already gone.
Sign the petition and tell the Department of Justice these families deserve a real investigation, and all Black Americans deserve safety and freedom.