Strange Fruit

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Strange Fruit

• Lynching

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Mob violence against African-Americans served
four functions within southern society during the
lynching era

• to eradicate specific persons accused of crimes
  against the white community
• as a mechanism of state-sanctioned terrorism
  designed to maintain a degree of leverage over
  the African-American population

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Mob violence against African-Americans served
four functions within southern society during the
lynching era

• to eliminate or neutralize competitors for
  social, economic, or political rewards and
• as a symbolic manifestation of the unity of white
  supremacy".

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The Reasons Given forBlack Lynchings

• Acting suspiciously
• Gambling
• Quarreling
• Adultery
• Grave robbing
• Race hatred Race troubles
• Aiding murderer
• Improper with white woman
• Rape
• Arguing with white man
• Incest
• Rape-murders
• Arson Inciting to riot
• Resisting mob
• Assassination
• Inciting trouble
• Robbery
• Attempted murder
• Indolence

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• Garfield Burley
• Curtis Brown
• Nebern, TN
• October, 1902

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Will JamesCairo, IL November 1909
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• Joseph Richardson
• Leitchfield, KY
• September, 1913

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• Jesse Washington
• Robinson, TX May, 1916

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• Elias Clayton, 19 Elmer Jackson, 21
• Isaac McGhie, 21
• Duluth, MI June, 1920

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• Unknown
• Center, TX
• August, 1920

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• James Clark
• Eau Gallie, FL
• July, 1926

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• .

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Strange Fruit
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.

• Southern trees bear 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.

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