In June 2020, the month after George Floyd’s murder, he posted a drawing based on a famous photo of Malcolm X peering out of a window, armed with a rifle. Beneath it was a caption: “Because I have a Black son,” it said, followed by a drawing of a heart. That same month, in a separate post, Mr. Nichols wrote that he had seen “a lot more cops” who had decided to “kneel with all the protesters” and walk alongside them “with no batons and forceful weapons.”
“Humanity is SLOWLY being restored!” he wrote.
Eventually his stepfather, Rodney Wells, helped him find a job at FedEx. The company’s headquarters are in Memphis, and it has long been viewed as a crucial engine for economic sustenance and mobility for Black residents across the economic spectrum. “Those jobs are like post office jobs back in the day,” said State Representative Joe Towns Jr., who represents part of Memphis. “Everybody wants one.”
He worked the evening shift, and would come home with his stepfather, who worked the same shift, at around 7 p.m., when his mother had home cooking waiting. Ms. Paxton said that Mr. Nichols had specific goals: to earn enough to buy a car and a house, and to be able to fly his son out to visit him. Weekends, he would skate and take photos.
On the Saturday night when he was beaten, his mother had planned to cook him sesame chicken, a favorite. When the police stopped him, she said, he was driving back from Shelby Farms, a 4,500-acre park in the heart of Memphis, where he had probably taken in the sunset.
According to an initial police statement, the officers stopped him at 8:30 p.m., and a confrontation followed. He fled, but they chased him and caught him. The statement did not mention the beating, but it did note that he complained of shortness of breath. An ambulance came and took him to the hospital in what the police described as “critical condition.”
Richard Fausset
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