Denial is holding blacks back (A teen suicide in year 2000)

Aug 3, 2000 | It's hard to say how many more official probes it will take before Jesse Jackson and black leaders accept the bitter truth that black Mississippi teen Raynard Johnson was not lynched but committed suicide. The latest to come to that conclusion is Michael Baden. The world-renowned forensic expert visited Johnson's home and thoroughly reviewed two autopsy reports, one of which was privately commissioned by Johnson's family. He found no solid evidence that Johnson was the victim of racist violence.

Baden's findings were made public by the commander of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, an African-American. But even this probably isn't enough to persuade Jackson and other black leaders that white racists didn't murder Johnson. Not surprisingly, when Jackson was told of the latest conclusion, he did not return phone calls from reporters for comment. Hopefully, Mississippi's governor won't hold his breath waiting for Jackson and other black leaders to heed his call to apologize for smearing the state.

That was painfully evident to me recently when I spoke to a large group of African-Americans. During the question and answer period, the issue of the burning of black churches came up. I pointed out that nearly one-third of the more than 100 people arrested by FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents in the burning of over 200 churches were black. In some cases there was strong evidence of a loose conspiracy by a disjointed group of racist whites to burn these churches. But this should not let the blacks that burned their own churches off the hook.

There was nothing racial about their motives. They burned their churches out of revenge, anger, to conceal thefts, or to perpetuate insurance fraud. They were criminals and no one should try to excuse or justify their shameful acts. Disappointingly, several blacks did. Angry, they immediately shouted, "How do we know that they actually burned the churches? The only thing we have to go by is the white man's word." Their blindness to reality was the ultimate in collective racial denial.

-------Snip The Attempted Lynching of Race Relations in MississippiSought Answers in Suspicious Hanging Death

Jackson's Rainbow Coalition/PUSH launched its own investigation into Johnson's death. Jackson's investigators identified several people who could have been involved in the teenager's death and said that someone may have been angered by Johnson's friendship with two white girls. Authorities, however, said that Johnson's girlfriend had broken up with him shortly before his death and contended that all the evidence was consistent with suicide.

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Marchers in Mississippi: Black youth was lynched

BY ROBERTO GUERRERO AND BRIAN TAYLOR KOKOMO, Mississippi--"Everybody get your walk on! Everybody, everybody get your walk on, what!" sounded off many high school students who joined this 700-person-strong march here, in searing southern heat, to demand a federal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the hanging death of Raynard Johnson.

Local police have declared the Black 17-year-old's death a suicide. He was found hanging from a pecan tree in his front yard June 16. But the prevailing view here is that Johnson was the victim of a racist lynching carried out as a result of his relationship with a female classmate who is white. Family members say the suicide claim just doesn't add up. The belt Johnson hung from, for example, was not his.

[NOTE: One of my co-worker friends attended this march. He told me how good it felt to be able to 'march for civil rights'. He even donated $150 to PUSH. Of course, that was Jackson's intention all long, IMO. He stirred dissent and anger, collected money from the poor people he claims to champion and left town with their money.]

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U.S. Assures Jesse Jackson It Is Pursuing Death of a Black Mississippi Youth

Attorney General Janet Reno and other top Justice Department officials assured the Rev. Jesse Jackson at a 90-minute meeting in Washington today that the department was actively investigating the hanging of a black youth in his front yard in Mississippi a month ago.

An autopsy concluded that the death of the youth, Raynard Johnson, 17, was suicide. But his family and Mr. Jackson say they are convinced that he was lynched because of his relationships with white girls.

Under persistent pressure from Mr. Jackson, state, local and federal officials have been investigating the death for nearly four weeks despite a state medical examiner's finding of suicide. The autopsy found no cuts, scratches, bruises, wounds or other signs that Mr. Johnson had been either hanged by assailants or killed first and then strung up from the pecan tree where his body was found, in the small southern Mississippi town of Kokomo on June 16.

J. Brad Pigott, the United States attorney in Jackson, Miss., said today that investigators had interviewed more than 40 people. ''We're determined to keep interviewing people in an attempt to get to the bottom of the true facts of the hanging,'' Mr. Pigott said. ''To the extent that any investigation can get to those facts, we are determined to do so.''

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