Think About It. Strange Fruit. A high school senior in 1948, I went to work at the local radio station in Marion, Indiana. Combining that new career with a “normal” high school experience provided an interesting perspective on life. Although I had guided patrons to their seats in a Tampa, Florida theatre, I had never thought about race issues. It seems “they” wouldn’t have considered darkening a southern cinema door in those days. So it came as a surprise to me that “colored” people were obliged to sit in the balcony known as the “peanut gallery”. It was the Indiana Theatre where I would soon do commercials while star Bill Fowler pestered me on the Saturday evening broadcast of the Fun Frolics.Perhaps there was no pride to be had in the black-white relationships there, since no one mentioned the sordid history that prompted Abel Meeropol (pen name Lewis Allen) to write a haunting poem/song memorializing the sordid result of a fateful day in 1930 when Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were lynched. At age 17, not listening carefully to the words, I had no idea when playing Billie Holiday’s 1939 recording on WBAT, that I was living in the town that engendered the shocking images of the ultimate penalty for being black in those days.
These are confusing times. Sadly there was no confusion the day that a mob of two-thousand locals gathered to make sure two young men died, rope burns on their necks, hanging from a tree in the Grant County court house square. A third was spared but was tried, sentenced and jailed for four years. James Cameron said in response to his eventual pardon sixty years later, that he had long since pardoned those who nearly lynched him while they completed the job on his friends.
There’s a complicated formula for ascertaining the number of times justice has been frustrated and illegal death by hanging has been accomplished in this country. The last Lynch Report counting from 1882 provided a total of 4,733 dead as of 1959.
Many relationship roads have been travelled on the way to now. We seem to be passing through a muddy patch not sure where to stand. Bogged down with a feeling of alrightness, but not having a vision for the next steps to togetherness. Relationships with not only African-American citizens, but also the multiple nationalities and races in this melting pot of a country continue to provide challenges to our civic peace with unity. It seems however, or at least we hope, we have seen the end of the Strange Fruit. Think About It.
Thanks to magical photographer David Linsell for the gift of Ken Burns Jazz Story of America’s Music including Strange Fruit. Next you may want to see the lynching scene that day. Then Billie Holiday’s rare and affecting video.
Look if you can. and Listen carefully.