Lynching :: Strange Fruit, Without Sanctuary, & a Mini-Project

Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday

Southern trees bear strange fruit

Blood on the leaves

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

The scent of magnolia sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
for the rain to gather
for the wind to suck
for the sun to rot
for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

Composed by Abel Meeropol (aka Lewis Allan)

Originally sung by: Billie Holiday

"Between 1882 and 1903, 2,060 blacks were lynched in the United States. Some of the black victims were children and pregnant women; many were burned alive at the stake; others were castrated with axes or knives, blinded with hot pokers, or decapitated."                                                 

Amistad Digital Resource, Columbia University

Lynching Resources:

Statistics & Timelines:

• Lynching in America:  Statistics, Information, Images [use this site for choice A]

Photographs:

• Without Sanctuary [use this site for choice B]

Ida B. Wells: 

• Biography of Ida B. Wells

"One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap." ~ Ida B. Wells 

• Video about Ida B. Wells

PBS Site about Strange Fruit

Lynching mini-project overview and rubric

  

Examples of projects from previous classes:

Danielle's ecphrasis My Fading Family

Jake's ecphrasis I'm Sorry

Sara's ecphrasis Bad Romance

How to post your glog correctly on the blog:

• Grab the embed code (not the URL) from your glog.  
• Go to NEW POST here on the blog (you'll need to be logged in to Blogger).
• Choose HTML instead of Compose
• Paste the embed code
• Change the percentage in the code:  CHANGE SCALE =100 to SCALE=75, CHANGE WIDTH=960 to  720, CHANGE HEIGHT=1300 to 975