By Carron J. Phillips
Time and again, this regime has proved it will do whatever it wants for whom it prefers. It would be nice if this administration and its supporters had the conviction to live by the ideals they profess, rather than allowing race, gender, and political affiliation to dictate its moves.
The death of Nolan Xavier Wells serves as the perfect opportunity.
The body of the missing 18-year-old Black teenager was found in Mississippi two days after he suspiciously disappeared on the afternoon of July 4, 2026, while spending the holiday with “friends” on Horn Island. That term — friends — is being loosely used given the circumstances around the case, as authorities have confirmed that Wells was last seen “talking to a girl” before he joined those “friends” on a boat headed to the island.
A Black boy among a large group of white teenagers in the Deep South disappeared and died, and suddenly nobody knows anything. And that’s despite the viral video allegedly showing a heated confrontation near where Wells’s body was found.
In situations like these, wondering whether foul play was involved is less about a rush to judgment and more about simple math.
One plus one equals two.
“Nolan Wells was a beloved son, teammate and friend who went out to celebrate the Fourth of July and never came home,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, retained by Wells’s family, wrote in a statement. “His family deserves answers. They deserve the truth. We will not rest until every fact about what happened to Nolan on Horn Island is brought into the light, and we call on investigators to pursue this case with the urgency and transparency this family deserves.”
Every generation of Black Americans has been forced to live in a reality that involves them remembering the names of people who look like them who died under suspicion for no other debatable reason than being Black. Sometimes it’s at the hands of law enforcement like George Floyd and Laquan McDonald, and other times it’s because people felt they could be judge, jury, and executioner like in the cases of Emmett Till in 1955, Trayvon Martin in 2012 and Gary Jackson in 2023.
If the circumstances were reversed, this administration would be moving mountains to bring the culprits to justice, given how much they claim to value humanity.
“When I listen to Republicans talk about being pro-life, what I want to know is where are their pro-life stances when it comes to Head Start, … prenatal care, … and when you have Black women who have a high rate of dying during childbirth, … and infant mortality?,” political commentator Roland Martin asked a few years ago, pointing out the hypocrisy in mantras the GOP often advocates for yet perpetually falls silent on when it pertains to Black people.
“If you are pro-life, you are standing there with Black folks when their kids are killed by cops — you are not silent,” he explained. “So, if you’re pro-life, be pro-life from the womb to the tomb.”
The fear of being one of the few or the only Black person in predominantly white spaces isn’t a delusion of “reverse racism.” It’s a cultural awareness grounded in centuries of evidence and stories that have been passed down for generations. This foundation contributes to the virality of Wells’s story.
Black people aren’t “making things up.” Because racism isn’t legitimized until it becomes undeniable in this country, here are a few historical instances that illustrate why so many of us believe we already “know what happened.”
2004: Alonzo Brooks, a 23-year-old Black man, suspiciously died after attending a party at a farmhouse in rural Kansas. Almost a month later, his body was found in a creek, and his death was linked to a possible hate crime.
2008: Brandon McClelland, a 24-year-old Black man, died after going on a late-night beer run in Texas with two white “friends” across the Oklahoma state line. He was run over, and his body was dragged 70 feet. The case was reminiscent of what happened in 1998 to James Byrd98, a 49-year-old Black man hooked to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Texas by white men.
2018: Tamla Horsford, a 40-year-old Black woman and mother of five, mysteriously died at an all-white slumber party in Georgia.
2020: Ahmaud Arbrey, a 25-year-old Black man, was jogging in Georgia when two white men chased him off the road with a pick-up truck before they shot and killed him.
These tragedies represent just a few of the countless incidents that have been forgotten, underreported, or left unresolved.
“The amount of people in here blaming the Black parents for letting their son socialize with white kids instead of going after white parents for failing to teach their kids not to kill or abandon their Black ‘friend’ is weird and internalized racism,” actress Rachel True wrote on social media while sharing her own experiences. “My parents moved us from NYC to all-white upstate NY and then explained that I couldn’t go to school dances cause they would lynch me. So, no need to explain ‘reality’ to me, a grown Gen-X adult. Point the finger at the culprits, racists, or indifferent white parents and their kids.”
As interest in Nolan Xavier Wells’s death rises across the nation, one side of America will hope for the best, and the other has already prepared for the worst because our cynicism is derived from experience. Just consider that the Wells family is seeking truthful answers and justice in a state where one of its senators notoriously said she’d gladly attend a public lynching.
Carron J. Phillips is an award-winning journalist who writes on race, culture, social issues, politics, and sports. He hails from Saginaw, Michigan, and is a graduate of Morehouse College and Syracuse University. Follow his personal Substack to keep up with more of his work.
While one could hope race relations had gotten better by 2016, the incredible damage done by the orange convicted felon and his mindless followers since 2017 will take many more decades to be undone.
The long list of people killed because they dared to exist in a White space just got longer. We must remember this young man's name and image, keep him in our hearts, and hope justice will be served.