Land, lynching and oil in Mississippi : NOLA Indymedia

When the US military is bombing people in Iraq to steal their petroleum via Halliburton, is it really a far stretch to think that the KKK would not kill an African to do the same if they know there is petroleum under their family land?

The police are calling his death a suicide because they don't want racial tensions to escalate, though suppressing the possibility of homicide will only cause more tension. Someone fighting a court battle to defend their family home is focused on survival, not suicide..

We cannot rely on the police alone to solve this crime, this time the people need to conduct their own investigation..

Using an innocent tree to kill another human being is a double crime for pagans. Just hope the police catch these racist murderers before we do..

POLICE: MISSISSIPPI LYNCHING - A SUICIDE?
By: Nayaba Arinde
Challenge Group
Originally posted 4/29/2004

''They hang one and scare the rest, that's the way they do it in Mississippi,'' Willie Bradley, a family member of the lynched Roy Veal called the Daily Challenge ''to put the news out there about what happened.''

On Friday, Roy Veal was found hanging from a tree close to his mother - Thelma Veal's home in Donegal, Wilkinson County.

Increduosly within less than a week, the state Department of Public Safety in Mississippi, announced that the 55 year-old Veal killed himself. Wilkinson County Sheriff Reginald Jackson said turkey hunters found his body.

A published report has DPS spokesman Warren Strain, declaring; ''Our investigators' findings are consistent with a suicide.''

Jackson requested that the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation looking into the case.

Reportedly, he is waiting on an autopsy report and results from the crime lab, before he makes his determination.

''Roy went down from Seattle Washington about a week prior to the hanging,'' said Bradley, who lives in New York. ''The family have been in court about the ownership of some land. A family member who was on drugs sold her portion to a white man, who has since tried to claim the 40 acres. Roy's grandfather had the land and his daughter - Roy's mother, has lived on it since she was 18. She is now 79 years old.

Evidently, the white guy is trying to steal the property, so the family has been in court fighting for the land. Roy said he had the all the paper work and a map. He left his mother's house last Wednesday [April 21], and the paper said that some turkey hunters found him hanging from a tree at 9a.m. on Friday.''

The Challenge asked if the burnt papers apparently found at his feet included the map and his proof of ownership of the land.

''The paper never did say,'' Bradley mused.

He said the property is allegedly oil-rich 40 acres in southwest Woodville.

The upshot of Veal's death, which Bradley said is not a suicide, has all the markings of the KKK.

''Evidently they scared his mother, but her daughter is coming from San Franicsco to continue the fight for their land. I spoke to my niece last night, and I heard that there is not going to be a funeral, just the family at the graveside.''

The Challenge asked 'Why?'

''They hang one and scare the rest, that's the way they do it in Mississippi. I'm from there. People down there are so afraid. Then there's the Black sherriff Reginald Jackson. We fought to get that Negro in office. He said 'There was no lynching, but yes, a man was hung.'

What's the difference between hanging and lynching? One is by law one is by a gang without law.''

The Challenge called Mississippi.

Not a great response. The paper wanted to know how law enforcement officials have stated that this unfortunately seemingly 'typical' lynching - could be detemined to be a suicide.

The paper called Warren Strain, director of public affairs of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, but could not get through; then a female at Wilkinson County Sheriff Reginald Jackson's office referred the paper to Mississippi's Federal Bureau of Investigation - who said that it was out of their jurisdiction; they put the Challenge on to press representative Debra Madden.

''The FBI is not involved,' said Madden. ''The supervisory special agent said that the state and local investigation is still pending. They are waiting for the autopsy results. If there's a determination that a federal criminal violation occurred, then the FBI will get involved with technical evidence recovery. We are just standing by.''

It is probably bubbling below the surface, an under-reported and/or ignored simmering potboiler -there is serious race issue - a potential, or probable battle brewing. It is national. General disastifaction: economics, politics, history and traditional social attitudes - and the taking back of legislated aids like affrimative action; are all leading to the kneading of the conditions that make white supremacy manifests itself in the most base fashion.

Veal's sister Doris Gordon, told the Associated Press, ''It's awful. We don't know who did it.''
She added, ''There are people trying to take part of our land because they apparently think there is oil on the land.''

Wilkinson Chancery Clerk Thomas Tolliver acknowledged in media reports that a lawsuit was filed last October by Boyd and Marjorie Alexander of Natchez and Kevin Krick of Baton Rouge, regarding a land title.

In December 2001, the Daily Challenge published an article on the epidemic that is Black land theft.
Then, Atty. Alton Maddox had invited Dr. Raymond A. Winbush, the Benjamin Hooks Professor of Social Justice at Fisk University and Director of the University's Race Relations Institute, to be the keynote speaker at the United African Movement weekly Harlem forum at the Oberia Dempsey Center.
Winbush's topic will be 'The Earth Moved: Land Theft and African Americans in the United States.'
''Land taken from Black folk is nothing new,'' Winbush told the Challenge then. ''[It is] the greatest unpunished crime in American history.''

The Associated Press had just summed up their study which ''documented a pattern in which Black Americans were cheated out of their land or driven from it through intimidation, violence and even murder. In some cases, government officials approved the land takings; in others, they took part in them. The earliest occurred before the Civil War; others are being litigated today.''
The AP documented 107 land takings in 13 Southern and border states. In those cases alone, 406 Black landowners lost more than 24,000 acres of farmland and timberland plus 85 smaller properties, including stores and city lots. Today, virtually all of this property, valued at tens of millions of dollars, is owned by whites or corporations.

According to the U.S. Agricultural Census., in 1910, Black people living in America owned at least 15 million acres of farmland, nearly all of it in the South. Today, that number is down to just 1.1 million acres of farmland, with Black part owners holding on to another 1.07 million acres.

Back to right now,, Veal family lawyer Homes Sturgeon, who is also a Wilkinson County prosecuting attorney, said that the autopsy results will shed light on the case.

He did not return a Challenge phone call by press time.

How can state law enforcement authorities through the Department of Public Safety/ Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, fix their mouths to say that a man with a pillowcase over his head, swinging from a tree, with signs of trauma, committed suicide? Strangefruit indeed.

''I just don't understand,''Bradley said, adding that he had contacted the Nation of Islam and other Black organizations. ''The papers are saying that everything is under investigation. This is not over. We want to find out what happened, and the fight will go on to keep the family land.''