A Black woman was found hanging from a tree in Mississippi.

Her death has brought back painful memories of lynching in the U.S. South.

Tasia Fortune was 29 years old.

She was found behind an empty home in Jackson on Aug. 3.

Jarques Ratliff is 51 and also Black.

He said he did not kill her.

He said this in court on Monday.

Police and lawyers have not said why they think someone did it.

They say more people may be arrested.

For many Black people, a rope and a noose bring back memories of lynching and violence.

Brad Franklin is an activist in Jackson.

He said Black people in the South feel some of the same things they felt in 1956 and 1966.

He said Mississippi's racist history has made them strong.

Fortune's mother is Christy Spivey.

She is white.

She said she does not think race was a reason for her daughter's death.

She called it "very personal."

She said someone who knew Fortune did it.

In the past two years, about six Black women and men were found hanged in the South.

Police in some cases quickly said they killed themselves.

Some people did not believe this.

They said there was little evidence.

Sean Joe is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

He said police must have evidence before they say someone killed themselves.

Spivey said she is sure her daughter did not kill herself.

In North Carolina, police are looking into the Aug. 21 death of Demetrius Eugene Fleming.

He was 38.

They are waiting for a medical examiner's reports.

In February, police in Cobb County, Georgia, found the body of Kyle Bassinga.

He was 21.

He was in a park.

Investigators said there was no sign of a crime.

But Lisa Cupid is the County Commission Chairwoman.

She said his death made many people think of slavery and Jim Crow.

Trey Reed was a student at Delta State University.

He died in September 2025.

His death was ruled a suicide.

Dennoriss Richardson was 39.

He died in Alabama in September 2024.

His death was also ruled a suicide.

His wife Leigh has said she does not believe he killed himself.

A private autopsy found his death was like a hanging, according to news reports.

More than 4,400 lynchings happened in the U.S. between Reconstruction and World War II.

This is according to the Equal Justice Initiative.

In 1955, a teenager named Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi.

His death helped start the civil rights movement.

Karlos Hill is a professor at the University of Oklahoma.

He said these lynchings were done in public on purpose.

They wanted to scare a whole community.

In September, almost 60 members of Congress signed a letter.

They asked the Justice Department to look into hanging deaths of Black people.

They also asked it to enforce the 2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act.

The Justice Department said it got the letter.

But it has not answered, according to the office of Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

She led the letter.