I Can Relate to Being the Only Black Person.

During my summer break in 2013, I worked at Camp Ocoee in Tennessee. Camp Ocoee is a YMCA Christian summer camp for kids ages 5-17. While there was a diversity of campers, I was the only black camp counselor. 

Initially, I didn’t want my status as the only Black counselor to bother me. Given the camp’s Christian and YMCA affiliations, I believed I could relate to my peers through our shared faith. However, I often felt like a loner and struggled to form friendships with the other counselors. I attributed this largely to my own social awkwardness rather than any overt ostracization; it wasn’t that anyone intentionally made me feel excluded, at least not that I could perceive.

But what I want to point out is that even with my individualism, it would still be nearly impossible for me to have died at that camp with no one having answers to how I died. Because it was rare for anyone to ever be alone. Counselors were always with a group of kids. And when counselors had an evening off during the week, it was always at least two counselors off, and they would usually hang out together. 

At an overnight camp, I was around people 24/7. My evenings off were my only chance to mentally and socially recharge, yet even then, finding solitude was a struggle because the other counselors would frequently invite me out. They looked out for me despite my reserved nature. This constant supervision and communal living are exactly why the circumstances surrounding the death of Nolan Wells don’t make sense.

Nolan Wells was 18 years old, and like any young man in such a setting, he was responsible for his own well-being, but he was also part of a group. I suspect that he was close friends with one or two of the boys in his group photos, but from other circulating pictures, Horn Island was full of other people on 4th of July. It is highly improbable that he could have died without anyone having answers. The narrative that he simply vanished or drowned unnoticed contradicts the fundamental reality of how these organizations and group trips function.

It’s not like Wells was in a city where he could have walked a far distance or been kidnapped. 

A user on Threads said this about Horn Island: “Horn Island is barely a mile wide and roughly 10 miles long. It has no obstructions that would prevent, say, a complete and thorough search for a “lost” friend. No buildings, valleys, ravines, etc. Just sand and light vegetation.”

There are deeply suspicious elements to this case. Reports that his friends were in possession of his phone and subsequently wiped their social media accounts upon their return are very suspicious. While some might argue this was done on the advice of attorneys or parents to avoid unrelated past posts being misconstrued, it suggests a coordinated effort to control the narrative rather than a transparent search for the truth.

The family’s decision to ship Nolan’s body to Washington, D.C., for an independent autopsy speaks volumes about their lack of trust in the local investigation. The Mississippi police initially attempted to categorize the death as an accidental drowning, yet the condition in which Wells’ body was found reportedly did not support that conclusion. Furthermore, the logic remains: if someone had seen him struggling, wouldn’t they have called for help? He was likely never completely alone.

The fact that autopsy results have not been publicly released creates a sense that evidence is being tightly controlled. My own experience as the only Black person in a group taught me that your presence is always noted. It is highly unlikely for a Black young man like Wells to die in such a setting without someone having critical information regarding how he entered the water.