The Cries of Black Blood From A Tainted Land: Prince Kohen Kartier Wiley and Prince Nolan Wells

Local & National News | October 15, 2026

The Cries of Black Blood From A Tainted Land: Prince Kohen Kartier Wiley and Prince Nolan Wells
Local & National News | October 15, 2026
@gilbertcarteriii
The blood of Prince Kohen Kartier Wiley, Prince Nolan Wells, and thousands more cry out to us from American soil. And an evil pathology still exists.
@gilbertcarteriii
 |  THE MEMOIR OF JOE CALHOUN

The Cries of Black Blood From A Tainted Land: Prince Kohen Kartier Wiley and Prince Nolan Wells

Local & National News | October 15, 2026 | 5:25 p.m. CDT

Written by: Gilbert Barnes Carter III

One of the few completely pure mediums across the great and infinite expanse of the universe is land. It is unique when one considers how much can be sourced from it freely without constraints. It is even described as a portal for the souls of the unavenged who have been slain since time in memoriam.

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he (Cain) said, "I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?" The Lord said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to Me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand." Genesis 4: 9 - 11 (Amplified Bible Version)

 

Reverend Dr. William Barber II included a direct reference to that passage of scripture in his address before the faithful that gathered in front of the "Prayer Wall" side of the historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Greenwood community in Tulsa on May 31, 2021. I joined other individuals from across the country to learn and reflect from May 31 to June 2 during the national centennial observance of the massacre that took place there.

Reverend Barber "stated that there were more than twelve massacres of Black people across America from 1863 to 1923 in cities and towns such as Colfax, Louisiana, East St. Louis, Illinois, Hamburg, South Carolina, New Orleans, New York City, Omaha, and Washington, D.C. The Memphis Massacre took place from May 1 to May 3, 1866. The Elaine (Arkansas) Massacre took place from September 30 to October 2, 1919. They are two of those deplorable examples of state sanctioned white American terrorism formed from the vestiges of chattel slavery."[1] The devastation in Elaine was the result of Black sharecroppers issuing completely warranted demands to receive equity with regard to financial compensation and union representation.

Reverend Barber also emphasized the fact that "there can be no reconciliation without conciliation." A restorative position such as conciliation cannot be shared with those who are cursed with an affliction unlike any other.

The Affliction of the white southern American

I personally have made the following proclamation for years. 

"I was born in the southeastern United States, but I am not 'southern.'"

There is a miniscule remnant of the defunct Jim Crow social construct that is still in place in this part of the country today. There many white people - and even self-loathing Black people and others with different ethnic affiliations who, sadly, crave proximity to white American society - who instinctively interpret my agency as "anarchy." They interpret my confidence as "hubris." They interpret my firm redirections of their unacceptable behavior as "abrasive."

White people across the country interpret the retellings of the accounts of the sadistic and unspeakable crimes of their ancestors and forefathers as "hateful." They interpret the support for continued academic historical study that is centered around the details of those crimes at the institutional level as "divisive." And the collective and complete disregard for that remnant is just one of the reasons why they act out of desperation in our present reality.

The distinction between the general pathologies of Black and white Americans during the Jim Crow era - white southern Americans in particular - was very clear. The latter based their entire social standing on their false and perverted ideology - Black people were innately inferior to them.

The Lynching Era in The Southeastern United States

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) group is based in Montgomery, Alabama. They have served as key leaders across liberation spaces in the sourcing of first-person qualitative interviews and quantitative data to enhance the research of American atrocities based on ethnicity. In 2017, they produced and released Lynching In America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror - Third Edition. The publication team identified and listed at least 4,084 cases of "racial terror" lynchings of Black men, women, and children. White people attended public spectacle lynchings of Black residents as if the presentations of their gory demises were outdoor stage plays. Concession stand items were often sold during those hideous assemblies. The lynchings of Mr. Ell Persons in Memphis and Mr. Lation Scott in Dyersburg, Tennessee in 1917 are just two examples of pure barbarity that should not even be imaginable.
 
"Public spectacle lynchings were those in which large crowds of white people, often numbering in the thousands, gathered to witness pre-planned, heinous killings that featured prolonged torture, mutilation, dismemberment, and/or burning of the victim. Many were carnival-like events, with vendors selling food, printers producing postcards featuring photographs of the lynching and corpse, and the victim's body parts collected as souvenirs."[2]
 
"Another public spectacle lynching took place in Memphis, Tennessee when a mob of (approximately) twenty five men seized Ell Persons from a train that was transporting him to stand trial for rape and murder. The mob had announced the lynching time and location in advance, and thousands of people attended, backing up traffic for miles. Food and gum vendors sold their wares to the many spectators as Mr. Persons was doused with gasoline and set on fire. A ten year old Black child was forced to sit next to the fire and watch him die. When members of the crowd complained that Mr. Persons would die too quickly if burned, the fire was extinguished, and attendees fought over Mr. Persons' clothes and remnants of the rope to keep as momentos. Two men cut off his ears for souvenirs, after which the head of Mr. Persons' corpse was removed and thrown into a crowd in Memphis' Black commercial district."[3]
Mr. Lee Walker - The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis
The historical marker in observance of the horrific lynching of Mr. Lee Walker is located near the intersection of A.W. Willis Avenue and North Front Street in downtown Memphis.
Mr. Lee Walker - The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis
The historical marker in observance of the horrific lynching of Mr. Lee Walker is located near the intersection of A.W. Willis Avenue and North Front Street in downtown Memphis.

"Later that year, just a few hours away in Dyersburg, Tennessee, Mr. Lation Scott was subjected to a brutal and prolonged lynching after being accused of 'criminal assault.' Thousands gathered near a vacant lot across the street from the downtown courthouse and children sat atop their parents' shoulders to get a better view as Mr. Scott's clothes and skin were ripped off with knives. A mob tortured Mr. Scott with a hot poker iron, gouging out his eyes, shoving the hot poker down his throat and pressing it all over his body before castrating him and burning him alive over a slow fire. Mr. Scott's torturous killing lasted more than three hours."[4]

The highest number of lynchings in a U.S. state from 1877 to 1950 is 654 in Mississippi. The highest number of lynchings per county in Mississippi during that same period is 48 in Leflore County. 

The highest number per county in Tennessee during that same period was 20 - in Shelby County.

Black sharecroppers throughout Leflore County and the Mississippi Delta - and those in Earle, Elaine, and throughout the Arkansas Delta - were constantly under violent duress. Incomprehensible white mob violence was a defining characteristic of a crooked through line in the southeastern United States - degradation through Black agricultural labor, the shedding of innocent Black blood, and the reception of that innocent Black blood by the land.

A Tainted Land: Mississippi

It takes no insight to list the peddling of Trump administration propaganda as a primary factor for the spread of avarice from many white Americans today in real time. I consider the peddling to be a secondary factor - at times tertiary - depending on the context. The aforementioned affliction is one that is passed down in America. Mississippi is the time displaced dimension where that affliction is the most pervasive. My assessment is not based on my personal experiences - from Southaven to Ripley to Tupelo to Ocean Springs. It is based - most importantly - on the historical accounts of white depravity and savagery there.
 
It is the exact same affliction that an entire white mob was under in Doddsville in 1904.
 
"In 1904, after Luther Holbert allegedly killed a local white landowner, he and a Black woman believed to be his wife were captured by a mob and taken to Doddsville, Mississippi, to be lynched before hundreds of white spectators. Both victims were tied to a tree and forced to hold out their hands while members of the mob methodically chopped off their fingers and distributed them as souvenirs. Next, their ears were cut off. Mr. Holbert was then beaten so severely that his skull was fractured and one of his eyes was left hanging from its socket. Members of the mob used a large corkscrew to bore holes into the victims' bodies and pull out large chunks of 'quivering flesh', after which both victims were thrown onto a raging fire and burned. The white men, women, and children present watched the horrific murders while enjoying deviled eggs, lemonade, and whiskey in a picnic-like atmosphere."[5]
 
It is the exact same affliction that Carolyn Bryant Donham was under. What else would prompt a woman to admit so brazenly and wickedly in 2017 that she lied while under oath during the sham of a murder trial in 1955? She was a mother of two small children at that time. Young Prince Emmitt Louis Till - still a child himself - indeed did not direct "cat-call" whistling in her direction at Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market in Money - over 71 years after that fact. What else would prompt the members of an entire Mississippi grand jury to subsequently refuse to issue indictments to Roy Donham and J.W. Milam for destroying Ms. Mamie Till Mobley's masterpiece?

It is the exact same affliction that white terrorists were under when they hunted, castrated, mutilated, and decapitated Prince Rasheem Carter just outside of Taylorsville in 2023.
 
The Civil Rights Era was the emphatic genesis for Black people in America to completely cease basing their agency, destinies, self-images, and world views on imposed deference, dread, indignity, and subservience. The Black Power Movement and associated Black American ideologies for systematic autonomy and empowerment were developed. It was the defining transition from the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) members - tasked with oversight of their "Atlanta Project" - provided one of the trademark declarations of refined Black American consciousness during the first March Against Fear - also known as the "Meredith March" and "Mississippi March" - from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi from Sunday, June 5 to Sunday, June 26, 1966.

"Our everyday contact with whites is a reinforcement of the myth of white supremacy. Whites are the ones who must try to raise themselves to our humanistic level."[6]

Black American consciousness was supreme, but the affliction of the white southern American remained. And as time passed, the affliction took on different forms.

The affliction that enslaved Carolyn Bryant Donham - enslaved Roy Donham and J.W. Milam - enslaved the members of that  Mississippi grand jury in 1955 - is the exact same affliction that enslaves beings such as Harold Vanderford - the former police chief in Senatobia - and Jackson County (Mississippi) District Attorney Angel Meyers McIlrath. Vanderford may not be guilty of rousing and leading bloodthirsty white gangs to murder his Black neighbors. He is guilty of making the conscious decision to routinely reserve salacious slurs through text messaging for them in the spirit of Cain during a period of intense grief after the completely preventable murder of Prince Kohen Kartier Wiley.

McIlrath may not be guilty of lying under oath during a murder trial. She is guilty of summarily dismissing the sheer anguish of Ms. Christine Wells Wonsley - the mother of Prince Nolan Wells - and his family members who continue to fight to receive that which should be a given. It is far more functional for her to cower behind her white womanhood - in the exact same manner as Carolyn Bryant Donham - than to draw empathy from her own motherhood to serve as a harbinger of justice. Her white womanhood is an acute symptom of her affliction. And in the exact same manner as Cain - McIlrath, white elected officials, white law enforcement officials, and members of yet another Mississippi grand jury lie and show disgusting indifference through listless and performative press release statements as the blood of our Prince Nolan Wells cries out to us from Horn Island.

"Am I my brother's keeper?"

Two Takeaways...

1. Black men and women must ensure that Black children are never isolated during social excursions and outings in America.

We must not have a fear based approach to instructing our Black children how to be vigilant and defend themselves in America. We must also continue to model aversion to murder and violent crimes within our own communities first.

We cannot allow for Black children to be isolated under any circumstances.

2. Black men and women must spend much more time increasing their knowledge of the history of acts of terror that have been committed against our people by our enemies. 

Reverend Barber spoke as an optimist and a realist in Tulsa in 2021. We will serve ourselves very well by taking heed to the stark reminder that is to be extracted from his realism as we continue to move forward in America and the Black nations that comprise our diaspora.

 

"There can be no reconciliation without conciliation."

 

I certainly have no desire to foster reconciliation with any group of people who lack the collective moral fortitude to acknowledge their transgressions. In the case of the white American - especially the white southern American - the copious number of American historical examples are reminders of just exactly who they are. They do not show us through public spectacle lynchings today. They show us through their macro and micro aggressions in a variety of public spaces. They show us through their white "right wing" media ranting, smear campaigns, and taunting against individuals who disseminate truth - regardless of their ethnic backgrounds. They show us through their bondage.

And their evil pathology - their affliction - still exists and maintains their bondage today.

 

The blood of our fallen Black men and women - our fallen Black children - still cries out to us today.

Are we even listening...?

Will we avenge them?

Photo Credits:
 
Cover Photo: Kohen Kartier Wiley (Source - www.ibtimes.co.uk)
 
Cover Photo: Nolan Wells (Source - www.globemagazine.com)
 
Body Photo (1) by: Gilbert Barnes Carter III
 
Body Photo (2) by: Gilbert Barnes Carter III
 
Sources (Footnotes):
 
A very special thanks is reserved for Ms. Tania Cordes - the communications manager with the Equal Justice Initiative - and the entire EJI team.
 
[1] Gilbert Barnes Carter III. (2025). My Black Homestead: Progression - Book One. The Book Patch (Wilshire Press). - p. 34
 
[2] Equal Justice Initiative. (2017). Lynching In America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror - Third Edition. - p. 33
 
[3] Equal Justice Initiative. (2017). Lynching In America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror - Third Edition. - p. 35
 
[4] Equal Justice Initiative. (2017). Lynching In America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror - Third Edition. - p. 35
 
[5] Equal Justice Initiative. (2017). Lynching In America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror - Third Edition. - p. 33
 
[6] Aram Goudsouzian. (2014). Down To The Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. - p. 60

Gilbert Barnes Carter III is a Memphis-based author, child welfare advocate, community organizer, emerging farmer, gardener, journalist, and social justice advocate. He began his social justice advocacy and work by serving as a Shelby County Fetal and Infant Mortality Review (FIMR) Board volunteer in 2005. He has worked since then to effectuate change for low-wage, immigrant, and migrant workers as a Temporary Workers Campaign Manager with Workers Interfaith Network; an advocate for Teamsters Local 667 sanitation workers; and a community / field organizer to uphold blight reduction, efficient public mass transit, environmental justice, food access, food justice, food security, narrative change, and public safety.

Learn more about Gilbert Barnes Carter III

Gilbert Barnes Carter III

(901)602-6370

THE MEMOIR OF JOE CALHOUN
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