Unit 4 Discussion: Strange Fruit
WARNING: This discussion contains graphic imagery. You do not have to click on the link below to view the photo if graphic images are too unsettling for you. You can informatively answer the questions below WITHOUT viewing every primary source document.
On August 6, 1930, police arrested three young black men – James Cameron, Thomas Shipp, and Abram Smith –for the alleged armed robbery and murder of a white man and the rape of a white woman in Marion, Indiana. The next day, on August 7, a mob of approximately 10,000 whites broke into the jail, took all three men, and lynched Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in the town center. (Sixteen year-old James Cameron escaped.) Men, women, and children attended the lynching, which local photographer Lawrence Beitler captured on film. White supremacists turned Beitler’s photograph into a postcard, which they subsequently printed, selling thousands of prints. Beitler’s photo traveled far and wide, reaching Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high school teacher in New York City, who was so disturbed by the image that he wrote a poem called Strange Fruit. A few years later, celebrated African American jazz singer, Billie Holiday, brought Meerpol’s poem to life in song.
QUESTIONS:
1. Both African Americans and white supremacists circulated postcards of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. To whom would African Americans send the postcard, and why?
2. Examine the photo, and then make three (3) observations about what you see. Analyze the expressions and gestures of the individuals in the crowd, how the individuals interact with each other, the juxtaposition of the lifeless young men in the background with the lively crowd in the foreground, and the overall atmosphere of the photo.
3. Contemplate the photo while listening to and watching Billie Holiday sing Strange Fruit. (Watch the video below.) How do the lyrics and tempo of Holiday’s song evoke the brutality of lynching?
