That is the question isn’t it?  How do you follow strange fruit?  We as followers of Christ wrestle with that everyday.  How do we follow strange–unnatural–fruit.  For the loveliest lynchee was our Lord!

Without Sanctuary:  Lynching Photography in America is a pictorial history of lynching.  Each stomach turning page brings home the reality of this form of execution.  Of the hundreds of photo’s there are three of a man named Frank Embree that are forever seered into my memory.  He stands stripped bare in the back of a buggy.  Handcuffs on his wrists.  He was only 19 years old though the look in his eyes betrays centuries of suffering as he stands tall trying to maintain his dignity.  The only sign that he is in pain is the slight grimmace of his mouth.  His legs are lacerated on all sides.  Long deep cuts run in all directions over his body.  He has been whipped 105 times.  He is moments away from a humiliating death by hanging in front of a crowd of more than one thousand people.  A final photo shows him stretched out dangling…crooked neck…arms restrained…eyes still open…loin cloth covering.

Writing about a similar picture, one author says, "He had been stripped of all his clothing but what appeared to be a loin cloth positioned below his hip.  The figure was eerily reminiscent of the image of Christ being crucified on the cross."

How do we follow strange fruit?