This song is a commentary upon the lynching of two black men, J. Thomas Shipp and Abraham S Smith, in the town of Marion, Indiana on 7th August, 1930. Both had been accused of robbing and murdering a white factory worker, and raping his girlfriend. They were being held in the local jailhouse. A mob entered and forcibly took the pair to be tortured and then hung from a tree in view of thousands of spectators, all white, including children. No one was ever convicted of the horrific killings and the guilt of the two lynching victims was never proven.
Lynchings were a major occurrence in the USA at that time. The Democrats, the southern party of slavers, continually opposed numerous anti-lynching bills in Congress. During this time, the membership of the Ku Kux Klan is alleged to have reached up to 6 million.
The next photo is from that night. The men were castrated, forced to eat their own genitalia, stabbed repeatedly, dragged behind vehicles over concrete roadways, hung and then dropped before death and then hung again, before being murdered.
Next is a close-up of some of those who attended the lynching. Billie Holiday sings about ‘strange fruit indeed’. Is the US to return to times like these with the white nationalism of Trump? (note the psychotic-looking fella with the Hitler moustache)
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