Nolan Wells' Mom Launches Political Career at Ben Crump's NABJ Production | Jason Whitlock Harmony

**Jason Whitlock** (0:00)
Ben Crump did not bring a case to Atlanta. He brought a production. Al Sharpton rode shotgun. A woman, Lucy Macbeth, took her mark. A Congressional Black Caucus letter went out to the Attorney General and the FBI Director. The National Association of Black Journalists gave them the room. And on that Forbes stage, they ran Mississippi Burning 2 like opening night. Dead Teenager, Mississippi Zip Code, Republican Villains, Standing Ovation Optional, Hard Questions Forbidden.
Lucy Macbeth was not there by accident.
She launched a Congressional career off the murder of her son, Jordan Davis, in 2012 Moms Demand Action, Mothers of the Movement, the 2016 DNC, then a House Seat in 2018
Grief became a resume. Atlanta was not charity. It was a master class.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:08)
This is Dead Fire. Grab your Bible.

**Jason Whitlock** (1:13)
This was not the first city on the tour. New York got the National Action Network Press Conference. Chicago got the NAACP.
Nashville got the National Urban League. Atlanta got NABJ.
Same dead boy, Nolan Wells. Same thin file, same racial upgrade, different letterhead, same product. They are not investigating a drowning. They are booking rooms. Take a listen.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:42)
From Brooklyn, New York. I was born and raised there. I don't come from the South. But my mother used to bring me down South to my grandmother in Dothan, Alabama. And Congresswoman, my grandmother told me, you see that pen over there? I said, yes. She said, that's a pen of hogs and pigs. I said, yes, ma'am. She said, always know something. If you take a brick and you throw it in that pile, the hog that hollers is the hog you hit.
There's too much hollering going on in Mississippi that we haven't hit something. I can't figure out which one we hit. But we hit something, because now they're talking about lawsuits. They're threatening a mother of a child, trying to get her job.

**Jason Whitlock** (2:28)
See, none of that's evidence. That's a standing ovation cue. Nolan Wells was 18 years old. He drowned off Horn Island on July 4th. That should have ended with a boy coming home.
Tragedy is real. A mother's grief, we hope, is real. What is not real is the automatic upgrade from drowning to national racial murder because the water happened to sit in Mississippi and the local map still has Trump voters on it.
That is their evidence package. Two exhibits. Exhibit A, Nolan drowned in Mississippi. Exhibit B, Mississippi has Trump supporting politicians. Watch.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:14)
They did declare very quickly, as you're noting, that he drowned when his body was recovered on July 6th. Mom and Dad, and you all know that he is a student athlete, able to swim on July 4th on Horn Island. It was very crowded. Certainly, the suggestion is someone would have seen a child in distress. There is going to be the convening of a grand jury. Now, the DA of this area, Angel Myers-Mackle Watch.
I'm just curious if there is a US attorney appointed to this case, it will likely be a Trump appointee. I'm just curious.

**Jason Whitlock** (3:53)
That's the whole docket, the state and the political party.
Rewind and watch it again if you missed the indictment. That is what they put in front of a convention of black journalists and dared anybody in the room to call it thin. The state is the suspect, the party is the motive, the friends on the boat become props in a play. Nobody has to prove, only perform. You do not need a charge sheet when you have a zip code. You do not need a weapon when you have a red county. You do not need a completed autopsy when you have Al Sharpton promising that the local investigation will itself be investigated once Democrats take the house back and stack the judiciary.
And every production needs a star. Christine Wells-Wonsley is not a supporting player in this. She is the lead. Take a listen.

**SPEAKER_3** (4:55)
But in addition to being black journalists, these are mothers and fathers, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles of black children. And we see your humanity. And we're going to center that in this conversation. There you go. Thank you.
I told Christine, if we cry on this stage, it's okay because we're among family. Amen. So you take your time.

**Jason Whitlock** (5:21)
Soft room, protected lead. The star walks into a theater that already loves her. Light-skinned Cicely Tyson energy.
Sounder posture. Grief, costume for the camera. The noble mother the room is treated, is trained to protect before the first hard question lands. Remember Sounder? Remember that movie, that 1972 film?
Did not just give Cicely Tyson a role, it made her a star. It earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. America watched a black mother carry dignity through dirt, hunger, and injustice, and the culture crowned the performance holy.