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(from Nightline E-Mail)
LYNCHING: AMERICA'S UGLY CHAPTER Feb. 23, 2005
Southern trees bear a strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees...
This is the first verse of "Strange Fruit," and if you are a jazz fan, or just a music lover of a certain age, you have probably heard it, and if you have heard it you cannot forget it. Written by a high school English teacher and closet Communist named Abel Meeropol, it became Billie Holiday's signature tune. In her plaintive voice, it became a lament, a cry of protest, and an expression of rage against the killing of thousands of black men (as well as women, children and men of other races) in the first half of the 20th century. But as David Margolick points out in his wonderful memoir of the song, Billie Holiday was, as she herself recalled later, afraid to sing it at first. She had added it to her repertoire in 1939, the same year the film "Gone With the Wind" appeared, with its fiercely racist images of blacks and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan. Radio refused to play the song, and people often walked out of her performances when she sang it. Once a woman even attacked her after a performance, ripping Holiday's dress, and screaming and crying that the song had brought up horrible memories of a lynching she had witnessed and hoped to forget.
As crazy as it sounds, that unnamed woman stands for the attitude of many Americans in their unwillingness to think about this ugly chapter in American history. Between 1882 and 1968, at least 4,700 people were lynched in the United States. Remarkably, many of these incidents were photographed -- and these photos were reproduced in the thousands, sold door-to-door as keepsakes -- along with other horrible souvenirs of these crimes. But, despite the fact that these images were plentiful at one time, they have become, as one of our interview subjects told us, the new pornography -- hidden from view - to be discussed only by those who are believed to share a certain sensibility.
Atlanta author and antiques dealer James Allen decided to change that. Years ago he stumbled upon a photograph of a lynching hidden in a rolltop desk he had bought from a country estate -- and in doing so, stumbled into his life's work. He has assembled a collection of 150 photos and artifacts of lynchings, some 90 of which can now be viewed in an exhibit making its way across the country (it is now in Detroit) or in an award-winning book called "Without Sanctuary." The collection, part of which can be seen in the first part of tonight's broadcast, challenges some of the common myths about this heinous practice, which arguably continued in some fashion well into the modern era, and in doing so, offers a fuller picture of the complex strains of our national history, especially our history in matters of race.
The second part of our report tells the incredible story of James Cameron, one of the few known survivors of a lynching. He went on to found the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wis., and will celebrate his 91st birthday this week. And in Part 3, anchor Ted Koppel will speak with a historian who will help put all this into some context.
As an aside, this program has been more than four years in the making, as we struggled with how to present these images, and whether, in a post-9/11 world, our audience would be prepared to look at and think about them. We decided, as we hope you will, that the truth is often more powerful than myth, and more interesting, besides.
Michel Martin & the "Nightline" Staff Correspondent ABC News Washington Bureau
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