✝️ Strange Fruit: The Death of Demartravion “Trey” Reed

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees.” – Isaiah 10:1

On Monday morning, 21-year-old Demartravion “Trey” Reed was found hanging from a tree on his campus. State medical examiners quickly ruled his death a suicide. But Trey’s family is not at peace with that conclusion. They are seeking an independent autopsy because they need more than an official ruling. They need truth.

🕊️ A Family’s Pain, A Community’s Questions

The grief of Trey’s family is immeasurable. No parent should bury a child. No sibling should face a holiday seat left empty. Yet their pain is made heavier by the circumstances of his death.

Let’s be honest: young Black men rarely hang themselves from trees. And with our history of lynching, we have not only the right but the responsibility to question.

For centuries in this nation, Black bodies hung from trees as symbols of hate, power, and terror. Families wailed at the roots of those trees. Whole communities lived with the trauma. That history is not erased simply because we live in 2025. When another young Black man is found hanging, even if labeled suicide, it awakens something deep in our bones.

💔 Suicide, Stigma, and Silence

We must hold two truths at once:

1. Suicide is a real and devastating crisis among young people, including young Black men.

2. Rushed rulings and dismissals of family concerns are also real, and they deepen wounds instead of healing them.

If Trey’s death was suicide, then the church and the community must rise to fight the epidemic of despair. If it was something more sinister, then we must not rest until justice is done. Either way, Trey’s life and his death demand our attention.

🙏🏽 The Church Cannot Be Silent

This is where we, the Body of Christ, must stand boldly. The church cannot look away. We are called to be:

• Comforters of the brokenhearted — holding Trey’s family close in prayer and presence.

• Voices of truth — demanding transparency, accountability, and an independent review.

• Healers of wounds — creating spaces where young people can talk about depression, mental health, and identity without shame.

• Prophets of justice — declaring that Black lives are sacred and must never be disregarded or rushed into silence.

Silence has never saved us. Prayer without action has never freed us. Faith without works is dead (James 2:17).

✊🏽 Standing in Trey’s Name

We cannot bring Trey back. But we can honor him by standing for truth. His family deserves clear answers. His community deserves compassion and support. And his death demands that we wrestle with the questions many are afraid to ask.

• Why was the investigation so quick to call it suicide?

• Why is the family left to seek an independent autopsy for peace of mind?

• Why are we still seeing young Black men in trees in 2025?

The prophet Micah told us plainly what God requires: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). That is our call today — to walk humbly with the grieving, to love them fiercely, and to pursue justice without fear.

🌟 A Prayer for Trey and His Family

Lord, we lift up Trey’s family before You. Comfort them in their grief, strengthen them in their pursuit of truth, and surround them with community that refuses to let them suffer in silence. Heal the wounds of our people, O God, from the trauma of history and the pain of today. Give us boldness to question, courage to speak, and faith to endure. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

🔥 Church, this is our charge:

We will not dismiss. We will not be silent. We will not accept quick answers where deep questions remain. We will mourn Trey, support his family, and cry out for justice until every life is treated with the dignity God intended.

Because when another son hangs from a tree, we cannot pretend not to see. We must speak, we must pray, and we must act.