Congressional Black Caucus holds ‘Stop the Lynchings’ panel, demands DEI in forensic medicine

The death of Tasia Fortune, found hanging in a tree, has led many to conjure up visions of America's racist past in which white supremacist KKK groups would lynch black people in the South. The suspect in the case is Jarques Ratliff, a man with whom she was associated.

There has not been a lynching since 1981, when 19-year-old Michael Donald was killed by the KKK in Alabama. But that hasn't stopped media and politicians alike from claiming that there is a spate of racist lynchings happening in America. There is not. Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt and Reverend Dr. Jamal Bryant put together the panel after realizing, NewsOne reports, "a glaring omission from the agenda of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual Legislative Conference: not a single session addressed lynching."

The panel was held at the Westin Washington, DC Hotel to "examine both the history and the series of contemporary deaths that families and civil rights advocates fear may be modern-day lynchings but have not been investigated as such." Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicized their concerns about these alleged lynchings, as well.

There's been no evidence to suggest that lynchings have occurred. Many of the 10 cases cited have been ruled suicides, and in Fortune's case, her suspected killer is also black.

The findings from police, however, were not enough to sway the panelists in the CBC events. They discussed "how the deaths of [b]lack people are frequently misclassified, how those classifications can derail investigations, and how the growing crisis of [b]lack suicide complicates questions surrounding these suspicious deaths."

Bryant compared the recent death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells, who drowned accidentally on a trip with friends, to that of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was killed in a racist attack. A Grand Jury in Mississippi found that there was no foul play in Wells death.

In another section of the event, Morgan State University's director of the Applied Sociology and Social Justice PhD program, Natasha Pratt-Harris, said that the investigations into the deaths of black persons are inadequate and racist.

"It's about race," she said. "Dr. Raymond Winbush, a noted race-based theorist, talks about the idea that race is in the center of it all. Everything is in racism. So when we talk about the ‘Strange Fruit,’ when we talk about the assessment of a police-involved death, and there’s questions about: Did this person die because of the beating by a police officer, or was it his heart that just so happened to stop when he was being beaten?"

Another panelist called for DEI in forensic medicine, saying, "Forensic medicine is medicine like any other medicine, and if we don’t have people performing that kind of medicine, they won’t get equity in the medicine."