On the morning of Sept. 15, a 21-year-old Black student named Demartravion “Trey” Reed was found dead on the campus of a small college in northwest Mississippi.
Mr. Reed’s death was twice ruled a suicide, and no evidence has emerged that would suggest otherwise. But the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People declared his death by hanging a “lynching,” a proclamation the group later tempered in a statement to The Times. Colin Kaepernick, the N.F.L. quarterback turned civil rights leader, pledged to fund an independent autopsy. The lawyer who represented George Floyd’s family got involved.
Closer to home, at Delta State University, students faced their schoolmate’s death soberly, replacing the revelry that typically accompanies a new school year with candlelight vigils and fund-raisers for Mr. Reed’s family.
“We’re just trying to look out for one another,” said Jy’Quon Wallace, a 20-year-old junior at Delta State, which has almost 2,700 students, 40 percent of them Black.
Mr. Wallace, who encountered Mr. Reed the night before he was found dead, said he has been following the speculation online and has great sympathy for Mr. Reed’s family. But he expressed worry at the tone of the national conversation.
“A lot of people are trying to use this situation to kind of make it seem like it’s racially motivated. There’s a lot of signs pointing to this as not a racially motivated situation,” Mr. Wallace said.
The response by many has been informed by the long, ugly history of violence aimed at Black men in Mississippi.For some, the mistrust of authority is fueled by conflicting initial reports about Mr. Reed’s death; much of it could be summed up as “but, Mississippi.”
But the views of many are also shaped by the fierce partisanship of the moment. Mr. Reed’s body was found five days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, in the midst of an aggressive backlash against the political left, pushed in large part by the White House. Some on social media reached for an analog in Mr. Reed, demanding to know why the death of an outspoken conservative was receiving so much more attention than the hanging of a young Black man in Mississippi.
After a preliminary autopsy, the Bolivar County coroner ruled out foul play in Mr. Reed’s death. Days later, the state medical examiner’s office said its “findings were consistent with the initial investigation, determining the cause of death to be hanging and the manner of death as suicide.”
Even officials, however, have conceded the official conclusion has not put the story to rest.
“Speculation from people who have no facts or evidence has dominated online conversations and even some national mainstream media outlets in the immediate aftermath of this tragedy,” Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, a Republican, said in a statement. That reaction, he added, “represents a sad state of affairs in today’s social media driven world.”
Regardless of timing or technology, a Black man hanging from a tree in Mississippi was bound to evoke images from one of the darkest periods in American history, when lynching was used to terrorize and maintain a racist order.
Mr. Reed’s family, who have said they have concerns about the official investigation, have retained the services of the prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin L. Crump, perhaps best known for representing the family of Mr. Floyd. Mr. Kaepernick’s involvement has raised the profile of Mr. Reed’s death even higher.
“Trey Reed was a young man full of promise and warmth, deeply loved and respected by all who knew him,” Mr. Crump said in a statement this month. “His family and the campus community deserve a full, independent investigation to uncover the truth about what happened.”
The N.A.A.C.P.’s president and chief executive, Derrick Johnson, said the civil rights groups “stands with the family of Trey Reed in calling for an independent investigation into his death.”
Avery Jones, 57, who said he knew Mr. Reed from their neighborhood in Grenada, Miss., an hour’s drive east of campus, said he, too, was skeptical that no foul play was involved, based on rumors that Mr. Reed had suffered broken bones from a beating. But Mr. Reed “did not suffer any lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, broken bones or injuries consistent with an assault,” according to the Bolivar County coroner’s office.
Other questions have been raised since Mr. Reed’s death about racism on the Delta State campus, though students defended life at their school.
Mississippi has ghosts that still haunt America’s popular consciousness, from Emmett Till to Medgar Evers. Between 1877 and 1950, Mississippi led the nation with 656 reported lynchings, according to data compiled by the Equal Justice Initiative.
Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, cited that history when he requested that the F.B.I. get involved after hearing from concerned constituents.
“When you find a young Black man hanging on a college campus, the normal reaction is, ‘this is not normal,’” said Mr. Thompson, whose district includes Mr. Reed’s hometown, Grenada.
The state medical examiner’s office said it was cooperating, adding in a statement that all files and investigative material have been turned over to the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office.
On the night of Sept. 22, a praise and worship team, awash in blue light, sang hymns from a makeshift stage on the campus quadrangle.
“I’ve been reminded over the last few weeks that the world is completely broken,” said one of the singers. “The only thing we can do is pray and believe that it will get better one day.”
The event, sponsored by the Baptist Student Union, was a chance for the students to reflect not just on Mr. Reed’s death but also the violence many had witnessed online when Mr. Kirk was assassinated.
Ashton Taylor, 23, hadn’t sought it out, he said, but it was unavoidable online. “I wish I didn’t see it,” he said.
Then to have a classmate die just days later has been jarring, he added.
But students have also rallied around their university.
“In a way, we’ve united, tried to stay together,” Atley Thompson, a 21-year-old Delta State student, said. “I personally love this campus, I love this small town, and so I don’t want social media or other people to feel like Delta State is a bad place.”
The online chatter has centered on discrepancies in the initial news reports and rumors that Mr. Reed was beaten or that certain family members were not contacted. Mr. Reed’s grandfather said he was initially told Mr. Reed was found dead in his room, an assertion the university police chief said he was not aware of. The police have confirmed video evidence exists, but they have not shown it.
“Once the investigation is over, then folks can see for themselves,” said Michael Peeler, the school’s director of public safety, and the second officer at the scene of the death. He said he could not be sure that they will come to the same conclusion as the coroner and the state medical examiner. “I’m not a fortune teller,” he said, “but I can tell you that they will see the facts.”
On a sweltering Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Wallace and his Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity brothers had partnered up with Pi Kappa Alpha, another fraternity, for a fund-raiser to benefit Mr. Reed’s family. For a two-dollar donation, students could smash whipped cream “pies” into a fraternity member’s face and revel in typical college high jinks, even amid an unfolding tragedy.
Mr. Wallace was still in a reflective mood, wondering if the outside world would subsume campus life.
“When that whole story comes out, if it does come out, then it may give some people clarity,” Mr. Wallace said. “It may not. That’s not up to us.”
Clyde McGrady reports for The Times on how race and identity is shaping American culture. He is based in Washington.
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