Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and fellow “Squad” member Ayanna Pressley are facing online pushback after demanding federal probes into 10 hangings of Black Americans this year.
The two Democratic lawmakers, 36 and 51, fired off a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel urging them “to fully investigate suspicious deaths and hold individuals accountable.” Nearly 60 House Democrats signed the missive, including Congressional Black Caucus chair Yvette Clarke, D-NY.
“We are extremely alarmed by reports of Black people found hanging from trees in numerous states throughout our country,” the letter stated. “The series of deaths raise significant suspicion of foul play given the role of lynching in our nation’s history.”
The lawmakers pressed for “a thorough, transparent, and comprehensive federal investigation into every hanging death of a Black individual across the United States.” They also requested “robust data collection” to track such fatalities in a “transparent and systematic manner.”
Ocasio-Cortez amplified the letter on X Thursday, writing: “This year, there have already been 10 reported hangings of Black people in the U.S. I’m proud to have signed onto @RepPressley’s letter to address these widespread modern-day lynchings and put a stop to this racial terror.”
That post was quickly hit with community fact-checks from users pointing out that most of the 10 deaths have already been ruled suicides by medical examiners or local law enforcement, with no evidence of racial motivation.
Ocasio-Cortez’s press office pushed back against the criticism in a statement to The Post. “At a minimum, each investigation, with permission of the decedents’ families, should include an independent autopsy, an audit of local and state law enforcement investigations, review of physical and testimonial evidence, and a final report submitted to Congress explaining the agency’s findings.”
Of the 10 cases the letter cited, only one is being actively investigated as a homicide. Tasia Fortune, 29, was found dead in Mississippi, and Terence Anderson, a Black man, is reportedly being detained as a person of interest in that case.
Another death, that of a Black father of nine in North Carolina, remains open and has been classified as suspicious by authorities.
The remaining seven fatalities — victims from Georgia, North Carolina, and other states — have been formally ruled suicides without foul play by local investigators.
The letter invoked the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, passed in 2022, which made lynching a federal hate crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison. The lawmakers asked the Department of Justice to deploy the law should any of the deaths ultimately be determined to be lynchings.
The coordinated letter marks the latest high-profile effort by “The Squad,” the left-wing faction of House Democrats, to draw federal attention to violence against Black Americans. Both Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley have built national profiles around progressive criminal justice reform and racial equity platforms since arriving in Congress.
Neither the Department of Justice nor the FBI responded to requests for comment on the lawmakers’ demands. Pressley’s congressional office also did not respond to outreach from The Post.
The online friction over the letter reflects ongoing tensions between progressive lawmakers who cite historical patterns of anti-Black violence in calling for aggressive federal scrutiny, and critics who argue such framing jumps ahead of available evidence in specific cases.
The dispute comes as the 2026 midterm cycle intensifies, with both parties already sparring over messaging on race, policing, and federal oversight of local law enforcement.
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, signed into law by President Biden, was the culmination of more than a century of failed legislative attempts to federally criminalize lynching. It is named for the 14-year-old Black teenager who was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Mississippi in 1955 after being falsely accused of offending a white woman.
Ocasio-Cortez is scheduled to appear at a town hall in her Queens-Bronx district next week.