Four months ago, 18-year-old Nolan Wells was found dead, face down on the shores of Mississippi’s Horn Island. In the ensuing months, the investigation into Nolan’s death has delivered deeply unsatisfying results and the state has been dismissive and even insulting to Nolan’s family. All of this has aroused justifiable suspicion from millions across the country that something is not right, and that it has to do with race.

The brutal racist police murders of Kohen Wiley and Corey Ruiz, the chilling unsolved lynchings of Tasia Fortune and Trey Reed, the repealing of the Voting Rights Act, and the mass firing of Black women from the public sector are all part of the vile, racist landscape of Trump’s America. Millions of Black people are actively following this case as they watch Mississippi law enforcement and courts slam the book shut on Nolan Wells, denying his family the resolution they deserve. Wells’ death is widely seen in Black America as representing the rise of anti-Black racism and violence over the past several years. Protests led by Black women and youth have broken out across the country demanding answers. 

It has been four long months, and still the state has not determined a cause of death. It’s entirely possible that if Nolan Wells was a white boy that the local government would have had a far more coordinated investigation trying harder to determine the cause of death. Black people—and in truth, working people as a whole—have little reason to have confidence in the state and in the justice system. From racist killer cops who are so often acquitted, to the statistical infrequency of solved Black homicides, the capitalist justice system is rife with systemic racism.  

Many Black people are seeing the stark, disgusting language of many media outlets on this case. Right-wing outlets have targeted Nolan Wells’ family, describing them as “horrible parents,” saying the blame lies at their feet, and blaming Nolan for drinking. It’s completely justifiable for Black people to connect the increase of anti-Black racism in society with the possibility that Nolan Wells was murdered after months of ineffective investigation and victim blaming.

Nolan Wells’ death is only the tip of the iceberg of US capitalism’s war on Black children. Black children are increasingly described by mass media as criminals, and large group gatherings of Black youth have been prohibited in some places. Flowing from this, US capitalism views the cases of missing Black children as inconsequential and not worth solving. 

Underneath all of this is an existential question facing Black America: Why is there a resurgence of anti-Black racism, and is it even possible to fight back? If so, how?

The Rise Of Anti-Black Racism

Anti-Black racism is clearly on the rise. Only 45% of Americans believe Black people face considerable discrimination, down from 60% in 2021. Black teenagers are racially harassed daily, with some studies claiming Black teenagers experience online racial discrimination three times a day. One day after Trump’s second successful election, Black children across dozens of states received racist texts claiming chattel slavery is back, telling them to “report to their plantations.” There wasn’t a single person arrested for this mass racist harassment of Black children.

Some activists claim that white working people are revealing their inherent racism that has always existed, but is now being fully exposed as Trump encourages racists to wreak havoc on Black communities. But the George Floyd uprising showed a multi-racial movement fighting for justice for a working-class Black man who was brutally executed by police. Thousands of majority-white towns across rural America had their first BLM rallies. At one point, the majority of Americans supported the burning down of a Minneapolis police building during the height of the George Floyd uprising. All of this was during Trump’s last year of his first term in office.

US capitalism was truly afraid of the potential of the Black liberation struggle to unite not just Black people, but all working people, in a class struggle against exploitation and oppression. Politicians and mass media relentlessly tried to co-opt the movement with their pathetic veneers of “woke.” Prominent BLM activists, unfortunately, took multi-million dollar deals with the establishment, some claiming that their monetary gains would uplift Black America. But the ruling-class attempts to placate and divert the movement through co-optation wasn’t enough to cut across the radicalization flowing across Black working class communities, and the new Trump era only added fuel to the fire of indignation. 

Trump 2.0 is US capitalism’s answer to its deep crisis, which includes the growing radicalization of Black Americans alongside youth, women, and immigrants. This regime has consciously endorsed racism and ramped up state violence against the oppressed, as part of its project to roll back the gains won by mass movements in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Trump and his ilk have promoted white nationalist conspiracy theories like the “Great Replacement,” the so-called planned replacement of white people with Black/brown populations through immigration. Trump-supporting billionaires have funneled millions of dollars into far-right influencers. Trump 2.0 is an openly anti-Black, far-right regime that has made it clear it considers Black America a key enemy to disenfranchise, terrify, and demoralize.

Nolan Wells’ death in this context has taken on profound importance. Fights for justice in cases like this can lead to the re-emergence of a larger, longer-lasting movement that can snowball into a direct struggle against Trump’s regime, the far right, and the entire political establishment of US capitalism. We can see the possibility of this type of development by looking at the murder of Emmett Till and how his death sparked the beginning of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s-70s. 

Lessons From Emmett Till

Nolan Wells’ death, being in the Deep South, alongside the ensuing fiasco in the courts and the nationwide discussion around it, has provoked comparisons with Emmett Till. In 1955, Emmett, a Black child, was beaten to death by two white men and his body thrown into the Mississippi Delta after a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, accused him of making sexual advances in a grocery store. Since then, it has been revealed that this story was absolutely false when she admitted to lying about the entire event in 2007. Emmett was completely innocent. These two white men were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury after an hour in deliberations. Later, these disgusting men bragged in a magazine about kidnapping and murdering Emmett Till after being acquitted, receiving $4,000 (worth over $50,000 now) for their interview. No one to this day was ever convicted for the murder of Emmett Till.

It wasn’t automatic that Emmett Till’s murder would spark a movement. There were more than 4,500 incidents of recorded lynchings from Reconstruction to World War II. Sadly, Emmett’s death was seen as ordinary in many parts of the United States at the time. 

The crucial difference was the decision of Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, to have an open casket, showing Emmett Till’s brutalized body. This story began to spread in Black magazines across the country. More than 50,000 people attended Emmett Till’s funeral, and local organizations began to organize protests and demonstrations. Mamie Till toured across the country with the assistance of the NAACP to call for building a national movement. This became the single most successful fundraising campaign in NAACP history. Time Magazine accurately described how powerful Mamie’s decision was: 

“For almost a century, African Americans were lynched with regularity and impunity. Now, thanks to a mother’s determination to expose the barbarousness of the crime, the public could no longer pretend to ignore what they couldn’t see.”

Nolan Wells’ mother has taken similarly courageous actions to fight for justice for her son. And just like Mamie Till, Nolan’s mother Christine Wells Wonsley is receiving death threats, hate mail, and harassment. This has inspired many young Black women and moms to play an important role in building a movement. The right to raise your children without fear of violence is as much a part of feminist struggle as the right to an abortion. On October 28, young Black women at Sacramento State University had a walkout called “The Nolan Wells and Women’s Rights Walkout,” calling out the repressive court system for denying justice to all of the oppressed. Socialist Alternative in Philadelphia is organizing on campus around the slogan “Justice for Nolan! Justice for all Jane Does! No justice under capitalism!” 

Unfortunately, one major difference today compared to Emmett Till is the ineffective and disorienting role played by establishment civil rights leaders in the Wells’ family struggle. Wells’ family is being represented by Ben Crump, a high profile civil rights lawyer who was criticized during the BLM movement as an egotistical profiteer who has done more to hurt the movement than help it. Ben Crump cozied up with Joe Biden during his presidency despite Biden’s support for expanding police budgets and arguing against defunding police departments, which was a key demand of BLM. Crump isn’t unique. The entire Black political establishment has done nothing but hurt the movement by pointing to the Democrats and racist courts as vehicles for change. It’s clear as day that their strategy has failed, and they have no answer to the rising crisis of racist violence facing Black America. 

Unlike Emmett Till, we don’t know what happened to Nolan Wells. It could have been a racist killing or an accidental death. There may never be a clear answer. But, two things are very clear: The police and court system failed both of them and has made it clear for a generation of Black people there is a two-tiered justice system. This is the reality of anti-Black systemic racism. There is no urgency in the court system to have a thorough investigation that could actually deliver closure for Nolan Wells’ family, friends, and community.

We Shall Overcome — Launch The Fightback Now!

November 1 was a national day of action organized by “One March, Fifty States,” an organization founded by those demanding justice for Nolan Wells. There were dozens of protests with hundreds of young Black people and others taking to the streets. Young Black people have organized high school walkouts across the country. Online, Black youth have created a massive amount of media to bring attention to the death of Nolan Wells and the burning need for answers. Young Black people are linking the violence they are facing by police with the open racist language of Trump 2.0, and are screaming for radical change. 

Clearly there is an opening to rebuild the Black liberation struggle, and segments of Black youth and workers are itching to fight back. We need militant Black leadership that understands the power and necessity of the multi-racial working class to fight systemic racism. 

We need a mass working-class organization based in Black communities across the country, discussing how to build a mass movement for Black liberation. The creation of “One March, Fifty States” has potential to be an exciting step toward this. Socialists should take up their call for monthly days of action by organizing mass community meetings to plan protests, rallies, demonstrations, community outreach, and strikes. Rank-and-file union members should organize for their unions to endorse these actions as well, because our power as Black workers is our ability to stop business as usual.

What would it mean to win justice for Nolan Wells? To start, we demand to reopen the investigation. We understand the calls from some activists and Nolan Wells’ family for a federal probe to investigate his death. Mississippi’s long and horrific history of anti-Black racism makes it clear that its law enforcement and courts cannot be trusted for a moment to actually investigate. But the same is true for Trump’s FBI and Department of Justice. It’s a den of white nationalist reaction that has no interest in finding out the truth. In either situation, we cannot allow them to simply investigate behind closed doors. We need independent working-class oversight over these investigations, with Black workers, youth, union members, and activists having full access to all information regarding Nolan Wells’ death, and mass community meetings discussing updates regarding the case. 

Winning justice for Nolan also means fighting systemic racism as a whole. That’s why our movement must also demand an end to racist policing, an end to the militarization of police, and to institute democratically elected community control of the police. Capitalism rests on structural racism and inequality—we need to redirect funding from the rich and from police budgets into good union jobs, public education, and permanently affordable social housing. 

But we cannot rely on the political establishment—the Democratic and Republican Parties. Understandably, many Black people voted Democrat to punish Trump for his racist attacks and repeal of the Voting Rights Act. But whether it be in Republican-controlled Mississippi with Nolan Wells, or Democratic-controlled Madison with Corey Ruiz, it’s clear that both parties will fight like hell to prevent Black people from getting justice. Black people across the South turned out in the midterms to help demolish Trump and the Republicans at the polls. We need to take this momentum into the streets! It’s time to build a new multi-racial, working-class party that is unapologetic in its fight for Black liberation, and not simply using Black people to win elections.

This fight is tied to the socialist transformation of society—winning a world where Black people and all working people control their communities and workplaces, and which ends the disease of racism once and for all.

We Demand:

• Reopen Nolan Wells’ case with independent oversight by workers and youth!
• Fight back against racist violence with mass action! Turn “One March Fifty States” into mass mobilizations of Black community organizations, the labor movement, and students.
• We won’t be divided! Build a movement to demand democratic community control of police; full funding for community centers, social services, and public schools; and a federal $25/hour minimum wage.
• Black liberation is socialist revolution! As Malcolm X said, you can’t have racism without capitalism. From poverty to racist police violence, capitalism and racism go hand in hand. To win Black liberation we need socialism.