Mack Parker was with friends when he passed by a white woman named June Walters. Parker didn’t think much of this — until he was awakened by a loud banging on his front door. Walters’ claimed she’d been raped.
Police arrested Parker!
Walters’ described her rapist as a lean, middle-aged Black man, but Parker was 23 years-old and 200 pounds!
But even with this evidence, an all-white jury indicted Parker.
3 days before Parker’s trial a white mob kidnapped him. They beat and shot him, then weighed him down before throwing him into a river — it took 10 days to recover his body.
Parker’s murder became national news. The FBI filed a 370-page exposing Parker’s murderers, but no one was convicted!
The judge for the hearing was a white supremacist who pressured the jury! Parker’s murder was one of the last Civil Rights era lynchings — his case remains unsolved.
Roughly 25% of lynchings were “justified” by alleged charges of sexual assault. Historically, white supremacy used rape, or false accusations of rape, to control us.
Practicing consent is more than sexual — it’s society honoring our boundaries and expectations for how we individually want to be treated. White supremacy tried stealing Parker’s consent but he died knowing his truth and quality of character, meaning in spirit, white supremacy couldn’t touch him.