ISU students gather in support of Nolan Wells

Black students and RSOs at Illinois State University attended a debate about the Nolan Wells case, following an earlier on-campus protest held in his memory.

Beyond the Headlines, hosted by Onyx Connect Media, was a student gathering in collaboration with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to discuss Nolan Wells further. The event was held in Schroeder 106 on Oct. 8.

Princess Glass, a student at Illinois State University with the RSO Onyx Connect Media, opened the meeting with a presentation on the publicly known facts from the case.

Wells, an 18-year-old college freshman at Southwest Mississippi Community College, traveled to Horn Island with his four white friends on July 4, 2026. When he did not return with his friends, his mother reported him missing. The Ocean Springs Police Department found his body two days later, on July 6, off the shoreline of Horn Island. Details of what happened to Wells have yet to be determined.

At the protest, many students wore black, a symbol of Black Lives Matter. As they walked around campus, students chanted “No justice, no peace,” holding posters and pictures of Wells above their heads. They walked a second lap and crossed the streets into Uptown Normal.

 “Nolan Wells did not drown himself;” Tahanni Warner, an ISU junior with Students Who Care, said before the protest. “He was a beautiful man who shouldn’t have died as early as he did.”

She came out for her community because, in her words, “it’s the importance of our community to tell stories and uplift our community, because who knows, we could be the next one.”

Many of the students in the RSO’s that participated in the march also sat in the audience at the meeting. Hinisha Malone, coordinator of the walk and president of Students Who Care, is a junior at Illinois State. Malone said, “I wanted to coordinate this event because I feel like sometimes when people are silenced, it’s out of fear. So I want them to be comfortable to have a space where they can come out and advocate for a situation as serious as this one.”

“No more silence, no more violence” was shouted continuously until the walk ended.

After the presentation, students debated whether systemic racism may have been the reason Wells’s case has been overlooked by authorities. Audience members raised evidence that Wells did not drown, since no water was found in his lungs. What his mother, Christine Wonsley, found after pushing for a private autopsy was blunt force trauma to his body.

Jamel Campbell, president of the NAACP chapter on campus, Union 3715-B, told me more about his view on the protest’s outcome.

 “Wells was not here on the campus of Illinois State University. However, he is a student,” Campbell stated. “He is one of our peers. So essentially, just to have empathy towards another student, regardless of whatever university I may attend, we all collectively are students in this world, and I want us to continue to advocate for not just a gain of students here on campus, but for students around the country.”