Flowers are displayed on the tree where Demartravion "Trey" Reed’s body was found on Sept. 15, 2025, before a candlelight vigil three days later at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. Reed was a 21-year-old computer science major from Grenada. The state medical examiner's office said: "Findings were consistent with the initial investigation, determining the cause of death to be hanging and the manner of death as suicide. Final toxicology results are pending and may take two to four weeks to complete."
Jeff Bennett is a writer and former collegiate athlete whose work explores the intersections of race, policy, culture and history. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Virginia Military Institute.

When I read about the death of Trey Reed, a Black man found hanging in Mississippi, I became upset. I did not immediately believe the early reports calling it a suicide. The South has proved, time and again, that it can cover up injustices against Black people. Stories like his reopen wounds we never fully heal from.

But I always comforted myself with distance. I would get down about these injustices, but they never hit close to home. Until recently.

The afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 8, a family member texted me. A noose had been found at his workplace, a manufacturing plant in Rockingham County, North Carolina. So far, the incident has not been reported by local news media. But it raised for me the question of how many other similar incidents go unreported. Carte blanche harassment that doesn’t see the light of day – where perpetrators aren’t held accountable.

When I processed what I read, I became infuriated. Hulk-level mad. The kind of anger that shakes your chest and makes your hands tremble. I was furious at the ignorance and hate this country continues to perpetuate. At how someone so easily dragged out a despicable symbol of the extrajudicial killing of Black people and White supremacist terror.

My relative’s coworkers were mad like me, but my family member stepped outside of his initial emotions to calm others as a peacemaker. To emphasize, this was their livelihood – not that they should accept disrespect – but not to do something they couldn’t undo.

My relative is a veteran. He served his country. He should never have to face hatred inside the same country he helped defend.

An integrated South, KKK recruitment

I grew up in Danville, Virginia, known historically as the “last capital of the Confederacy.” And yet, I never felt inferior there. There are more than 130 churches in Danville, so although flashes of ignorance are around, there are also constant reminders of love and salvation. These reminders helped me drown out what I saw as anomalies.

My dad lived through the adversities of the Civil Rights era, but I came of age in a more integrated world. My friends came from every background. We joked, we ate together, we shared the same classrooms and basketball courts. Danville, for all its history, had a way of being hospitable across the color line. Even during Jim Crow, my grandfather’s fishing buddy was a White man he worked with at the mill. Their friendship was easy, rooted in shared labor and quiet respect.

Even across the border in North Carolina, I rarely had bad dealings, despite what I knew was a strong presence of the Ku Klux Klan there.

Day-to-day, person-to-person, I have always believed in the decency of Southern people. Most of us want to live and let live.

In recent years, Danville has become a symbol of progress. A new casino has opened, the River District has been revitalized and old tobacco warehouses have been transformed into restaurants, lofts and art spaces. The city feels alive in ways it hasn’t for decades.

But like other progressive areas in the region, ghosts of past hatreds remain.

A few years ago, people in my parents’ neighborhood found KKK recruitment pamphlets under their windshield wipers.

Noose incidents not uncommon

Now, when I drive home, I see plenty of Trump signs. That is their right. I see Confederate flags fluttering along the highway. They lost, after all. I have tried to never let symbols outweigh my personal experiences. I believed that decency would win out in face-to-face interactions.

Until that text from my family member.

I feel bad for my relative and for everyone at the plant where he works. It is where they clock in to earn a paycheck. They raise families nearby and contribute to their communities. A noose in a workplace is not just an act of intimidation. It is a weapon of memory. It drags history into the present, turning a place of work into a site of fear.

And it is not just happening there. In the past year alone, similar incidents have surfaced across the country: a noose found in a shared employee locker in Evendale, Ohio; a noose-like rope discovered outside Atlanta’s Apex Museum, the oldest Black history museum in the city; and a noose at the new Tennessee Titans stadium in Nashville.

This summer, police investigated a noose hung in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. In April in Delaware, firefighters faced discipline after racist remarks and a noose display in their Millville station.

From museums to stadiums to firehouses, this resurgence of hate is not isolated. It is systemic. It is cultural. And it is emboldened. It is what happens when the country decides that removing diversity, equity and inclusion from institutions is progress. When those who quietly harbored hate now feel free to act on it without consequence.

Because hate never really leaves. It just waits for permission to come home.

We shouldn't have to prove our humanity

North Carolina – and Rockingham County – are not new to these modern incidents of racial intimidation. In 2015, a noose was hung from a tree on the Duke University campus in Durham. That same year in Rockingham County, a noose and KKK graffiti were found on a local business, according to WSET ABC News. And this past August, a display resembling a noose at a Wendy’s in Cary was removed after outrage.

The symbols may fade from the walls, but the message lingers.

No matter how this investigation ends, whether the person responsible for that noose in my family member’s plant is caught or not, that image will linger. Every time my family member walks into that building, he will remember it. Every person there will. You do not unsee something like that. You do not unfeel it.

I want my family member and everyone like him to go to work and come home safe. To live free from the symbols meant to terrorize us. To never again have to prove our humanity in a country we already helped build and defend.

Until that day, I’ll keep speaking up, even when it hits close to home.

Jeff Bennett is a writer and former collegiate athlete whose work explores the intersections of race, policy, culture and history. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Virginia Military Institute.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: After Trey Reed's death, I stayed quiet. Then my relative found a noose at work. | Opinion

Reporting by Jeff Bennett / USA TODAY

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