BILLIE HOLIDAY AND THE PUBLIC LYNCHING,
LESS WE FORGET...
Saturday, December 9th 2006
One of my utmost favorite songs, 'Strange
Fruit', downloadable here,
sang by Billie Holiday about the Blowtorch Lynching and other similar events
that took place when slavery was accepted and for some reason people enjoyed
these executions like it was some sort of circus act. For education wise,
incase you yourself don't know what happened in those sad times, during
the nineteen-thirties down south, in Winoda and other places, Rozevelt Towns and
Bootjack McDaniels, 26 year-old Negroes, pleaded not guilty to a charge of
murdering a crossroads country grocer...But when they stepped out of a side door
of the courthouse, they found themselves face to face with what so often handles
cases like theirs in the South. An angry mob surged forward, took them
from the custody of their guardians without a struggle...Heavy chains clinched
as the two black moors were made fast to the trees.
Bootljack McDaniel's were asked to confess first. He gibbered that he was innocent. A mobster stepped forward with a plumber's blowtorch, lighted it. Again he refused to confess which is still done to this day only without the pain and more to deal with brain washing like the children, now grown men, Damian and his friends who were forced to confess, thinking that they might get out of going to prison, which they still haven't to this day. The Two movies I recommend watching dealing with there situation, police sucking out a quality plea is, 'Paradise Lost' and the sequel, 'Paradise lost 2: Revelations', goes to show how easy it is to cause what many believe are innocent but pleaded guilty for reasons that are so called un-known. After watching this and the sequel, it's really hard to believe that these three boys could be capable of such things as mutilation, castration, witchcraft and other terrible things.
Back to the the 1930's Lynching
(The most common states where Lynching took
place)
The blue-white flame stabbed into his chest...This occurrence was nothing new or old, many crimes where blamed on people only because of there origin or skin color and that's what makes Billie Holliday's song so immensely strong and real. I hope it changes your life like it did mine and somehow inspires you to do some sort of research on the roots that tormented many people who believed that they where going to some sort of promised land, when it turned out that they were just being brought over to become slaves and/or victims of other peoples crimes. You can view many of the photographs dealing with what occurred here but please be beware and advised of the gruesome and explicit content of the photos that are terrible but true.
U.S. lynching chart by race of the years 1882 - 1968
You can clearly see that as each year passed less and less white people where included in lynching and Blacks constantly rose...
Below are some of the photo's I have collected of Lynching and protests that make modern day racism seem irrelevant, even though it still exists, only now it's not a form of entertainment like it once was, a demeaning gathering spectacle. Click on images to view full picture, it's wont direct you away from this page.
Warning: all pictures contain explicit content, especially the last photo
(people of all races against and trying to put an end to the madness)
For
more information visit some of the links provided below and if I didn't stress
it enough download Billie Holidays song, 'Strange Fruit' here.
Just right click and save as, this is a non profit site and is solely for
information.
About
Lynching by Robert Zangrando here
Lynching in America by assorted writers here
Lynching in the Encyclopedia here
More will be added when I come across information
that's not available here or in the links I provided.
Please feel free to send all comments or files to icis@icisnizz.com
