SisterSong's Statement on the Death of Nolan Wells
ATLANTA, GA — We are heartbroken. Nolan Wells was eighteen years old. He went to Horn Island with friends to celebrate the Fourth of July, and he never came home. Last night, a Jackson County grand jury declined to bring any charges in his death. This morning, Nolan’s parents stood in front of cameras and said what every parent fears saying, that they do not understand how their son could be gone and no one is accountable for it.
SisterSong stands with Christine and Elmore Wonsley. An independent pathologist retained by the family documented recent, unexplained blunt force trauma to the back of Nolan’s head and body. That finding has never been explained. Attorney Ben Crump and Nolan’s family have said plainly that this result leaves more questions than answers, and they are right to keep asking them. We join them in calling for the investigation to continue, including at the federal level, until the Wonsley family has the full truth their son deserves.
Our opposition is counting on exhaustion. They are counting on us watching one grieving family after another, one “no charges” announcement after another, and simply running out of breath to keep fighting. That exhaustion is not an accident. It is a strategy. And we refuse to let it work.
A Message to Nolan’s Family
To Christine and Elmore Wonsley, please hear us. There is a community that exists for exactly this moment. There is a movement, built over decades by people who buried children too, grounded in a simple truth: every person has the human right to parent their children in a healthy, safe environment. That movement was created to stand with families like yours when the systems meant to protect you fail to answer for what happened to your son. You are not carrying this alone, and you will not have to.
This Is Bigger Than One Case
Nolan Wells’ death does not stand apart from everything else our communities are living through right now. It sits alongside the attacks on our reproductive autonomy, the attacks on our history, the attacks on the organizations built to defend us, and a pattern of Black death met again and again with no accountability. These are not separate fights being waged by separate movements. They are one fight, coming at our children and our families from every direction at once.
This is why SisterSong launched We Are Human, a coalition built on the belief that reproductive justice, racial justice, and the safety of our children are inseparable, and that no single organization or sector can carry this weight alone. Nolan Wells’ death is a call for movements across sectors, racial justice, reproductive justice, gun violence prevention, criminal justice reform, and beyond, to stop working in silos and start showing up for each other with the same urgency we would want shown for our own children. That unity is not a talking point. It is the only strategy that outlasts an opposition betting on our exhaustion.
What We Are Committing To
• Continuing to say Nolan Wells’ name, and to support the Wonsley family’s call for a full and transparent accounting of what happened to him.
• Deepening the We Are Human coalition as a home for organizations and communities ready to unite across sectors in defense of Black life, Black autonomy, and Black childhood.
• Refusing the exhaustion this moment is designed to produce, and asking our community to refuse it with us.
Nolan Wells should be starting his freshman season this fall. Instead, his parents are asking a grand jury’s report to explain injuries it never explained. We will not look away, and we will not grow tired of showing up. Rest in power, Nolan.
About SisterSong
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective is the largest multi-ethnic Reproductive Justice organization in the United States, working to center the lived experiences of the most directly impacted communities in the movement for reproductive autonomy, dignity, and freedom.