The daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is speaking out after the death of Mississippi teen Nolan Wells, calling the circumstances surrounding his drowning “very troubling” and urging Black communities not to dismiss yet another case that has left families demanding answers. In an exclusive interview with The Root, Dr. Bernice A. King said her first reaction to hearing about Wells’ death was, “Here we go again.”
King said the case speaks to a larger fear many Black Americans continue to carry. “How do we ever get to a place where we can feel safe in this country?” she said, adding that “some things just don’t add up” when stories involving Black deaths are quickly explained away without deeper scrutiny. “We still got some serious issues in this nation around. I’m just gonna say it — Blackness,” King said on Wednesday. “We got a problem with Blackness that we need to address. And we can’t sweep it under the rug.”
As civil rights attorney Ben Crump prepares to represent Wells’ family, King said the moment should push others to think beyond outrage and move toward a coordinated strategy.
Related: What Happened to Nolan Wells? Ben Crump Takes Case of Missing Athlete Found Dead on Horn Island
“We need some more Ben Crumps,” King said. She echoed that Black people need to return to the teachings of her father and build coalitions. “We can’t be so siloed in this season of evil that is coming against us as a community,” she said. “We’ve got to be connected and coordinated in our coalitions.”
Wells was an 18-year-old athlete who was last seen on Saturday, July 4, on Horn Island, a barrier island about 10 miles from the Gulf Coast. Horn Island is a completely isolated, federally protected wilderness area with no commercial development, electricity, or security cameras, and is accessible only by private boat. A park ranger found his body on Monday.
“The wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College was preparing to return for the upcoming football season and would have turned 19 next month. His family deserves answers. They deserve the truth,” Crump wrote in a statement on July 8. “We will not rest until every fact about what happened to Nolan on Horn Island is brought into the light.”
