Rasheem Carter's Death is a Reminder of Territories that have Never Been Kind to Black Visitors
I learned about Rasheem Carter's death after taking a road trip through the same rural territories that claimed his, and an innumerable amount of Black lives.
Last weekend my wife, Leslie, and I took a road trip from Maryland to New Orleans for my aunt’s funeral. The travel, a 16-hour drive that can easily turn into a 20+ hour journey when stops are included, is an expedition from the Upper South/mid-Atlantic region of the country to the Deep South. It is a passage that shows how the cultural landscape can differ with every state line crossed.
I took the majority of the first leg of our drive down. We began our travel just before 8:00 am navigating a long trek through Virginia before hitting the mountainous terrains of Tennessee. I was driving during daylight hours, making stops at truck stops or highly-visible rest areas per Leslie’s request, and making sure I did my best to adhere to the speed limits. In the year 2023, there is still a degree of peril for a Black man driving for multiple hours while descending further into the rural South.
Siri may be able to navigate your route, but Siri is not able to determine the locations where your presence may not be welcomed.
As nightfall came upon us, Leslie was behind the wheel as we journeyed from Interstate 66 in Tennessee to I-65 South heading toward Alabama. My mind, no larger as sharply observant of the roads ahead of me began to drift in a myriad of thoughts. I reminisced about my Aunt Henri Belle whose homegoing celebration we were headed to. I thought about family members I hadn’t seen in years. I thought about my career path, and what was next on the horizon. I thought about the last time we took the road trip from Maryland to south Louisiana for my father-in-law’s funeral.
I also thought a great deal about generations of Black families that made countless trips from the top to the bottom of the U.S., and vice versa. I thought about the creation of The Negro Motorist Green Book, and its purpose of keeping Black travelers safe as they traveled through towns and municipalities rife with racial hostility. I thought about movies and documentaries I had seen that showed images of Civil Rights activists being slowly trailed by white supremacists while riding along desolate roads.
I thought about how the absence of streetlights served as accessories to an unfathomable amount of lynchings.
Leslie and I made the round trip encountering darkness upon arriving at each of our destinations. We landed in both Louisiana and Maryland in the 5:00 am hour, pushing through Mississippi as the last stop before our first destination, and Virginia as the last stop before our final destination. And though there was no state on our route that has been historically kind to Black people, there is something that feels especially daunting about navigating the birthsite of American slavery (Virginia), and perhaps the cruelest, and most violent state for anti-Blackness (Mississippi), as the corridor leading you home.
It wasn’t until I got back to Maryland that I learned of the death of a 25-year-old Black man named Rasheem Carter whose remains were found dismembered in the woods of Mississippi four months ago. Rasheem had gone missing while working near the town of Laurel, Mississippi. He reportedly called his mother on October 2, 2022, and told her that he was being chased by white men in three pickup trucks who were hurling racial slurs at him.
By November 2, 2022, his body was found with his head detached just south of the town of Taylorsville, Mississippi.
Initially, local authorities in Smith County, Mississippi said they didn’t suspect that any foul play was involved in Rasheem’s death. In fact, the country sheriff, Joel Houston, was quoted in the Washington Post describing the scene where Raheem’s body was found as evidence that coincided with “what animals would do to a body.”
Sheriff Houston was obviously right about his assertion that “animals” had dismembered Rasheem — his department, however, was wrong in assuming that the animals that dismantled Rasheem’s body moved on four legs, instead of two.
Civil rights attorney, Ben Crump, along with the Carter family has called for the Department of Justice to open a federal probe into Rasheem’s death. After months of being stonewalled by Smith County officials, the family is arguing against the sheriff’s assessment that no foul play happened.
Because the fact that Rasheem’s body was found with the front rows of his teeth missing, severed vertebrae and decapitated a month after he had gone missing, and after he alerted local authorities that he felt threatened by the men who were chasing him, would undoubtedly lead his family to believe that their loved one was murdered in a gruesome manner.
This case is one of those instances of racial violence that has gone from scattered “flurries” of media attention to a full-on avalanche, but it has taken months for it to get the awareness it deserves. It reminds me of learning about the death of Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor literally weeks after they took place, because their deaths, like Rasheem’s, did not have the “benefit” of being caught on camera.
What this event has reinforced is the fact that there are pockets of America, and specifically in the Deep South, where vigilantes and law enforcement coordinate efforts to not only enact violence against Black people but to aid each other in the cover-up.
For the sake of Rasheem’s family, I sincerely hope his killers are found and held to account because it doesn’t take a homicide detective to know what happened to him.
Rasheem was clearly abducted, maimed and left for dead in a similar manner as far too many Black folks who dared to occupy space along country roads.
He encountered the kind of violence that has historically routed generations of Black Americans to early graves.
Unfortunately, this is a grim reminder of what can happen to a law-abiding African American citizen in a place where he is not wanted. The cowards who commit actions such as this should be drawn and quartered as in the Medieval times, but conservative media will probably praise them as “heroes” and defenders of their own turf. I believe there is an uptick in the amount of violence against African Americans simply because these cowards believe they can get away with it and local authorities will collude with them and allow them to get away with it.