On this day in 1919, a Black teenager drifted across an invisible line in Lake Michigan. White beachgoers stoned him until he drowned. He was 17.
His name was Eugene Williams. The "line" was the unofficial boundary between the white and Black sections of a Chicago beach. A line drawn on WATER.
Police arrived. Black witnesses pointed out the man who had thrown the stones. The officer refused to arrest him and arrested a Black man from the crowd instead.
That refusal lit Chicago on fire. Thirteen days of white mobs raiding Black neighborhoods, and Black veterans fighting back: 38 dead, 537 injured, roughly 1,000 Black families burned out of their homes.
It began because a child couldn't see a border that existed only in white minds.
This is why we have documented 150 crimes against Black people that remain unanswered for https://t.co/V6OJtayKnF
Staci Turner, the Chief Medical Examiner in Mississippi, needs to be thoroughly investigated. Every case she’s ruled as accidental, undetermined, or suicide involving Black people should be reexamined immediately.
Take Trey Reed; found hanging on the Delta State University campus. She ruled it a suicide. But an independent investigation later determined it was a homicide after discovering blunt force trauma and bruising all over his body.
Nolan Wells was ruled a drowning almost immediately after his body arrived. His family has now demanded an independent investigation.
Damion Cameron’s death was ruled undetermined after a deadly confrontation with law enforcement left him with internal neck bleeding.
And Shannon Wilson was embalmed without his family’s permission; destroying critical evidence that could have shown he was murdered.
This is exactly what institutional racism looks like. When I post about it, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about.
They call us racist for exposing their racism!
The Odyssey is not a historical story. It’s based on an epic myth. Helen was born from an egg. All of you going on about the cast and “historical inaccuracies” sound ridiculous. It’s a work of fiction. Go touch some grass and read a book.
In light of the Nolan Wells story, a North Carolina mother is still fighting for answers more than 9 months after her 17-year-old son, Joshua Gabriel ‘disappeared’ at #NorthTopsail Beach.
Joshua, who was an avid, strong swimmer, went to the beach wi… | https://t.co/PunfuoUJSe