It’s still hard to wrap our heads around the mysterious circumstances in the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells, even more so with it officially being ruled a drowning despite an autopsy that suggests otherwise. Even more surprising, his premature passing has now become linked to the family legacy of late civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr.
His daughter, Bernice King, recently revealed that the sorrowful fate of Wells mirrors the still-unsolved drowning death of her uncle and MLK Jr.’s only brother, Reverend A.D. King.
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“Uncle A.D. was found dead in his swimming pool in July 1969,” Bernice candidly shared in a post on social media (seen above), going on to add, “Fifty-seven years later, my family still carries unanswered questions about the circumstances of his death.” She makes note of the shared pain with a bittersweet relatability, writing, “There are details that make Nolan’s family’s questions painfully familiar. Both were strong swimmers. Uncle A.D. had a bruised forehead and no water in his lungs. Nolan also had bruising on his head and no water in his lungs or airways. His cause and manner of death remain undetermined.”
Along with most of Black America, her note didn’t end without a prayer for the fallen. “I pray Nolan’s family receives a thorough, transparent investigation and the answers they deserve. I pray they do not have to live with decades of unanswered questions as my family has,” says Bernice, ending her touching statement with a closing line that reads, “Grief is already a heavy burden. Families deserve truth, and their loved ones deserve to be remembered for the fullness of their lives.”
More into the unsung history of A.D. King below, via The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University:
“Alfred Daniel Williams King was born on 30 July 1930, in Atlanta, Georgia. A. D. was the third child of Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King, Sr. In contrast to his peacemaking brother, Martin, A. D. was, according to his father, “a little rough at times” and ‘let his toughness build a reputation throughout our neighborhood’ (King, Sr., 126). Less interested in academics than his siblings, A. D. started a family of his own while still a teenager. He was married on 17 June 1950, to Naomi Barber, with whom he had five children. Although as a youth he strongly resisted his father’s ministerial urgings, King eventually began assisting his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 1959, King graduated from Morehouse College, and that same year he left Ebenezer to become pastor of Mount Vernon First Baptist Church in Newnan, Georgia.”
A.D. was in many ways just as big of an activist as his famous brother, even being arrested alongside MLK Jr. during an October 1960 Atlanta lunch counter sit-in. “My friends, we have had enough problems tonight. If you’re going to kill someone, then kill me…. Stand up for your rights, but with nonviolence,” he once shouted from the top of a car as an angry mob rightfully protested the home bombing of a prominent Black lawyer in downtown Birmingham. Sound familiar?
We stand alongside Bernice King in demanding the unfiltered truth so yet another Black family isn’t robbed of answers to an unsolved death. Sadly, many other families within our culture relate explicitly to this tired tale of fatal misfortune.
