Protests Planned For Suspected Lynching
K O K O M O, Miss., July 5, 2000 -- Civil rights leader Jesse Jacksonsaid today he would lead a two-day march in Mississippi thisweekend to draw attention to the “mysterious” hanging deathsof black men in the once deeply segregated Southern state.
Jackson, president of the civil rights group Rainbow-PushCoalition, said the planned march was prompted by the death ofRaynard Johnson, a 17-year-old black teenager who was foundhanging from a pecan tree outside his family’s house in Kokomo,on June 15.
Local authorities ruled Johnson’s death a suicide, butJackson said there were suspicions local whites had targeted theteenager for dating white girls in the small town, about 150miles south of the state capital, Jackson.
“I’m suggesting that Raynard Johnson was murdered. Thehostility toward him and his brother was very substantial,”said Jackson, who noted that graffiti bearing the words “Killall niggers” had been scrawled on a bridge near Kokomo wherewhite supremacists held a recent rally.
“In addition to Raynard Johnson, there are six or sevenother rather mysterious deaths called suicides, some by gunshotand some by hanging,” said Jackson in reference to a number ofother deaths in Mississippi.
Other Suspicious DeathsJohnson’s death was investigated by the Marion CountySheriff’s Office in Columbia, Miss. Based on a coroner’sreport, which found no suspicious marks or injuries on theteenager, police concluded it was a suicide.
Police in Marion County were not immediately available forcomment today.
Jackson demanded, however, that Mississippi authoritieslaunch an investigation into the deaths of Johnson and 46others, including more than 20 blacks, who reportedly committedsuicide in Mississippi jails from 1987 to 1993.
Jackson, a former presidential candidate, said the deathswere suspicious.
When asked about the allegations, Mississippi AttorneyGeneral Mike Moore declined to comment.
Jackson, who has enlisted the support of black leadersincluding the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York City, said protesterswould march Saturday to Johnson’s cinderblock home, continuingSunday to the Marion County courthouse in Columbia.
Reward OfferedThe Rainbow-Push Coalition also posted a $10,000 reward forinformation leading to the arrest of Johnson’s alleged killers.
Civil rights leaders said the Johnson case bore similaritiesto that of 14-year-old Emmett Till, a black teenager who wasabducted and murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for whistling at awhite woman.
Till’s name is still cited through the South as an exampleof white hostility toward blacks.
The last recorded lynching in Mississippi occurred 40 yearsago when eight masked men dragged a black man from a countyprison and hanged him just days before he was due to go on trialfor raping a white woman.