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Martin Luther King III and his wife, Andrea Waters King, were in Georgia when they learned about the July death of Nolan Wells, who authorities in Mississippi said drowned even though no water was found in his throat, lungs or stomach.

“We were getting our daughter prepared for college when he died,” Waters King said about Wells. “The news just hit in the pit of your stomach.” Wells graduated from high school in 2025 and had just finished his freshman year at a community college about an hour south of Jackson, the state’s capital. “For me, the mother … just really reflecting on her tears, her anguish. It just really struck a chord for me, given the history of Mississippi.”

King, the son of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., said the appearance of a laissez faire attitude from authorities regarding the recent deaths of children is chilling — not only Wells but also year-old Kohen Wiley, who was killed in a police shooting in June in Mississippi. Authorities there recently deemed the use of force justified, although the context was an accusation that someone in the car with him had stolen diapers.

“We see these incidents where Black people are being hung from trees — and we know Black people don’t hang themselves — and then, Mississippi. It makes you wonder what in the heck is wrong with our society? This is not only about Black people, Black children — these are all our children.”

He was echoing the words of James Baldwin, who in the days leading up to the 1980 general election wrote in the Nation: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all........

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