1. Strange Fruit Lynching
According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, between 1882 and 1968, mobs lynched 4,743 persons in the United States, over 70 percent of them African-Americans. Billie Holiday will sing it in 1939.

2. Mob violence against African-Americans served four functions within southern society during the lynching era:
to eradicate specific persons accused of crimes against the white community;
as a mechanism of state-sanctioned terrorism designed to maintain a degree of leverage over the African-American population;

3. as a symbolic manifestation of the unity of white supremacy".
Mob violence against African-Americans served four functions within southern society during the lynching era:
to eliminate or neutralize competitors for social, economic, or political rewards; and
as a symbolic manifestation of the unity of white supremacy".

4. The Reasons Given for Black Lynchings:
Acting suspiciously
Gambling
Quarreling
Adultery
Grave robbing
Race hatred; Race troubles
Aiding murderer
Improper with white woman
Rape
Arguing with white man
Incest
Rape-murders
Arson Inciting to riot
Resisting mob
Assassination
Inciting trouble
Robbery
Attempted murder
Indolence
Running a bordello
Banditry
Inflammatory language
Sedition
Being disreputable
Informing
Slander
Being obnoxious
Injuring livestock
Spreading disease
Boasting about riot
Insulting white man
Stealing
Burglary
Insulting white woman
Suing white man
Child abuse
Insurrection
Swindling
Conjuring
Kidnapping
Terrorism
Courting white woman
Killing livestock
Testifying against white man
Criminal assault
Living with white woman
Throwing stones
Cutting levee
Looting
Train wrecking
Defending rapist
Making threats
Trying to colonize blacks
Demanding respect
Miscegenation
Trying to vote
Disorderly conduct
Mistaken identity
Unpopularity
Eloping with white woman
Molestation
Unruly remarks
Entered white woman's room
Murder
Using obscene language
Enticement
Non-sexual assault
Vagrancy
Extortion
Peeping Tom
Violated quarantine
Fraud
Pillage
Voodooism
Plotting to kill
Voting for wrong party
Frightening white woman
Poisoning well
The Reasons Given for Black Lynchings:

5. Lynching of African American male, victim hanging in a tree, stripped, lower body wrapped in coarse blanket. Lynch mob. Circa 1900, location unknown.
Remember dehumanization was the key to lynching, many were beaten and stripped and then lynched.

6. the lynching of an unidentified African American male in a coastal Georgia swamp. 1902
On back: Warning The answer of the Anglo-Saxon race to black brutes who would attack the womanhood of the South

7. Garfield Burley Curtis Brown Nebern, TN October, 1902
The lynching of Garfield Burley and Curtis Brown. October 8, 1902, Newbern, Tennessee.

8. Will James Cairo, IL November 1909
The lynching of Will James. Lynching scene.  Commercial Avenue jammed with spectators below the electrically lit Hustler's Arch. November 11, 1909, Cairo, Illinois.
Will James Cairo, IL November 1909

9. Joseph Richardson Leitchfield, KY September, 1913
Joseph Richardson was removed from the county jail in Leitchfield by a mob and lynched on the public square at 1:00 a.m. on September 26, The mob presumed he had assaulted an eleven-year-old white girl named Ree Goff.
The photographer who took this picture peddled the cards door to door. A descendent of the original purchaser expressed the remorse the townspeople felt upon recognizing the victim as the town drunk, who had "merely stumbled into the child, and not even torn her dress."

10. Jesse Washington Robinson, TX May, 1916
Charred corpse of Jesse Washington suspended from utility pole. May 16, 1916, Robinson, Texas
Jesse Washington
Robinson, TX May, 1916

11. Elias Clayton, 19 Elmer Jackson, 21
The lynching of nineteen-year-old Elias Clayton, nineteen-year-old Elmer Jackson, and twenty-year-old Isaac McGhie. June 15, 1920, Duluth, Minnesota.
Elias Clayton, 19 Elmer Jackson, 21
Isaac McGhie, 21
Duluth, MI June, 1920

12. Unknown Center, TX August, 1920
                                                
Unknown
Center, TX
August, 1920
Postcard depicting the lynching of Lige Daniels, Center, Texas, USA, August 3, The back reads, "This was made in the court yard in Center, Texas. He is a 16 year old Black boy. He killed Earl's grandma. She was Florence's mother. Give this to Bud. From Aunt Myrtle."

13. James Clark Eau Gallie, FL July, 1926
The lynching of James Clark, handcuffed. July 11, 1926, Eau Gallie, Florida. Ink inscription on reverse: "July 8, Rocky Water Camp Fla." Local newspapers reported that the chief of police and the sheriff were overtaken by a mob while transporting James Clark to trial in Titusville. It was the third lynching of a black man in that region in two months.

14. .
Lynching of gagged black male hanging from a tree in autumn. Large crowd of onlookers, mostly boys. Circa 1920, location unknown

15. Lynchings were not reported in major newspapers like the New York Times, therefore the NAACP would hang this flag out of their office window whenever they heard of one in the South.

18. Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, lynched in Marion, Indiana, on August 7, 1930 is the inspiration for “Strange Fruit”

19. Strange Fruit
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.