lynching

  • Strange Fruit

    I don’t think there is a more powerful song then ” Strange Fruit” which deals with racism. Especially the original version sung by Billie Holiday. The lynching of black men in the American South was an all-too-familiar occurrence in the 1930s, even though it rarely made news. So when Billie Holiday had a hit record

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  • Strange Fruit

    “Southern trees bear strange fruitBlood on the leaves and blood at the rootBlack bodies swinging in the southern breezeStrange fruit hanging from the poplar tree.” The lines above are from the song “Strange Fruit,” a beautiful song about a horrific event. It’s very hard to listen to it, but equally, it’s impossible not to listen

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  • On the night of August 7, 1930, the small city of Marion, Indiana became the site of one of the most infamous and haunting episodes of racial violence in American history—the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. What makes this event particularly searing in the American consciousness isn’t just the brutality of the act.

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