The Memory of Strange Fruit

 

Someone suggested we listen to banned black music as Black History Month is coming to a close, and they specifically suggested "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holliday. The song is about the "strange fruit" hanging from the trees in the South, and it uses some pretty graphic language to describe lynching. Just over a week ago Travalon and I were driving through Mississippi, listening to the Delta Blues playlist on Spotify, and I felt like the ghosts of those lynched people were still haunting the place. Even the music, the really old stuff like Robert Johnson and Son House, sounds so haunting, like they knew they could be killed at any moment depending on the whims of white people. I felt like the only way those ghosts are going to get any rest is if they know things have changed and this can't keep happening. But have things changed? I think of that poor jogger who was shot by a couple of rednecks while a third one filmed the whole thing, and how the good ol' boys weren't charged with anything until someone somehow got ahold of the video and everyone could see it. I think of cops killing unarmed black men without any repercussions, and I wonder, will those ghosts ever rest? 

One thing I know is that anger is so powerful, it lasts beyond the grave. I was killed when I hadn't done anything wrong, and my anger was so strong that for several days I haunted the man who killed me, until he was involved in violence that made my death seem mild. The anger compelled me to argue with God about the details of my current existence. If my anger could be that strong, imagine the anger of thousands of people who were murdered for the flimsiest of reasons. Imagine how they must feel, seeing that people now want to ban any mention of their murders in history lessons. If we pretend these terrible crimes never happened, the ghosts will never rest. They will haunt us until we are forced to remember somehow. But if we make this country live up to the ideals espoused in the Constitution, equally for everyone, then maybe the ghosts will finally rest and we can stop smelling a faint scent of the strange fruit on the breeze.

Famous Hat