The death of a Black woman found hanging from a tree in Mississippi has revived painful memories of lynching across the U.S. South.

Tasia Fortune, 29, was found behind an abandoned home in Jackson on Aug. 3.

Jarques Ratliff, 51, who is also Black, pleaded not guilty to murder on Monday.

Police and prosecutors have not given a suspected motive.

They say more arrests are expected.

For many Black people, the image of a rope and noose recalls the legacy of lynching and vigilante violence.

Jackson activist Brad Franklin said Black people in the South are feeling some of the same things they felt in 1956 and 1966.

He said Mississippi's racist history has toughened them to deal with it.

Fortune's mother, Christy Spivey, who is white, said she does not believe race played a role in her daughter's death.

She called it "very personal."

She said someone who knew Fortune was involved.

Over the past two years, about a half-dozen Black women and men have been found hanged across the South.

Police in some cases quickly ruled them suicides.

This drew skepticism when investigators offered limited evidence against foul play.

Sean Joe, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said any conclusion of suicide must be supported by evidence.

Spivey said she is certain her daughter would not have killed herself.

In North Carolina, police are investigating the Aug. 21 death of Demetrius Eugene Fleming, 38.

They are waiting on a medical examiner's reports.

In February, police in Cobb County, Georgia, found the body of 21-year-old Kyle Bassinga in a park.

Investigators said there was no sign of foul play.

But County Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said his death made many think of slavery and Jim Crow.

The September 2025 death of student Trey Reed at Delta State University was ruled a suicide.

The same was true of Dennoriss Richardson, 39, in Alabama in September 2024.

Richardson's wife, Leigh, has said she does not believe he killed himself.

A private autopsy found his death consistent with a hanging, according to news reports.

More than 4,400 lynchings occurred in the U.S. between Reconstruction and World War II, according to the Equal Justice Initiative.

The 1955 lynching of teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi helped catalyze the civil rights movement.

Karlos Hill, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, said these lynchings were intentionally public.

They were meant to convey terror to a whole community.

Nearly 60 members of Congress signed a letter in September.

It demanded the Justice Department investigate hanging deaths of Black individuals.

It also demanded enforcement of the 2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act.

The Justice Department confirmed it received the letter but has not responded, according to the office of Rep. Ayanna Pressley, the letter's lead author.