1
Strange Fruit

• Lyrics by Lewis Allan aka Abel Meeropol (Jewish
  teacher from New York)
• Sung by Billie Holiday in 1939

2
Lyrics

• Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
• Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
• Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
• Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
• Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
• The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
• Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
• Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!
• Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
• For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
• For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
• Here is a strange and bitter crop.

3
Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
4
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
5
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
6
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
7
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
8
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
9
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
10
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!
11
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
12
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
13
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
14
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
15
What is lynching?

• Lynching is an act of mob violence which results
  in the death or maiming of a person often
  suspected, charged, or convicted of a serious
  crime.
• Lynching is a group killing under the
  justification of serving justice, race or
  tradition.
• Lynching often occurs outside of the legal
  justice system.

16
Were only men lynched?

• Laura Nelson lynched with her son in Okemah,
  Oklahoma on May 25, 1911.
• Nelsons son was initially accused of stealing
  meat, but she tried to take the blame for him so
  they were both killed.

17
Were the victims always hung?

• William Brown lynched in Omaha, Nebraska on
  September 28, 1919.
• Brown was accused of molesting a white girl. The
  Mayor pleaded with the mob, but the mob set the
  courthouse on fire, seized him, hung him from a
  lamppost, mutilated him, rattled his body with
  bullets and then burned him.

18
Why did people take pictures of lynching?

• Thomas Shipp Abram Smith lynched in Marion,
  Indiana on August 7, 1930.
• These teenagers allegedly shot a white couple
  during an attempted robbery.
• James Cameron escaped this lynching.

19
Why were blacks lynched publicly from the 1880s
to the 1960s?

• To maintain the racial order in the south and
  elsewhere across the country after the end of
  slavery
• To protect white women
• To teach children racism
• To stop blacks from taking full advantage of
  their legal freedoms new economic opportunities
  given during Reconstruction

20
Why were blacks lynched publicly from the 1880s
to the 1960s?
Waud, Alfred R. The First Vote. Harpers
Weekly, November 1867.
21
Why were blacks lynched publicly from the 1880s
to the 1960s?
Blacks were elected to office in the South during
Reconstruction. These are Black congressmen from
the late 1800s, including the first black person
to serve in the United States Senate, Hiram
Revels (1869-1871).
22
What crimes were non-black lynching victims
accused of?
23
What crimes were black lynching victims accused
of?
24
Where did lynching occur?Lynching by State
Race 1882-1968(States with the highest lynching
ratesIL)

• State Whites Blacks Total
• Alabama 48 299 347
• Arkansas 58 226 284
• Florida 25 257 282
• Georgia 39 491 530
• Kentucky 63 142 205
• Louisiana 56 335 391
• Mississippi 40 538 758
• Missouri 53 69 122
• North Carolina 15 85 100
• Oklahoma 82 40 122
• South Carolina 4 156 160
• Tennessee 47 204 251
• Texas 141 352 493
• Virginia 17 83 100
• (Illinois 15 19 34)
• TOTAL 1,297 3,446 4,743

25
Why were non-blacks lynched?
Leo Frank, 1913 Jewish, northern-born factory
owner in Atlanta accused of raping murdering a
13-year-old girl
26
How did people respond to lynching?

• Our countrys national crime is lynching. It is
  not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst
  of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable
  brutality of an insane mob. It represents the
  cool, calculating deliberation of the intelligent
  people who openly avow that there is an
  unwritten law that justifies them in putting
  human beings to death without complaint under
  oath, without trial by jury, without opportunity
  to make defense, and without right of appeal
• - Ida B. Wells, former slave black journalist

27
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931)
28
Who else fought to end lynching?
NAACP Advertisement. The Shame of America. New
York Times, 23 November 1922.
29
Who else fought to end lynching?

• James Weldon Johnson, Walter White (NAACP)
• Jessie Ames Daniel (ASWPL)
• Many senators and congressmen wrote bills to pass
  a federal anti-lynching law, but out of more than
  200 bills, none could get past the southern
  Democratic voting bloc in the Senate.
• Organizations of northern blacks, white black
  journalists, and middle-class white women strove
  to end lynching. We will read about them more in
  class