Strange Fruit used to hang from trees in America.

Col. Charles Lynch was a Justice of the Peace with his own kind of justice in the late 1700’s.  He would hold illegal trials and upon convictions, would tie the suspect to a tree and whip them.  By the late 1800’s "Lynch Mob" was a part of the American vocabulary.  It was a term to describe the horrific practice of confiscating a "criminal" from the local jail or kidnapping him from his home in front of his family.  Without proper trial they would humiliate, whip with barbed wire, torture, emasculate and hang the strange fruit from a tree.

The crop of strange fruit was counted during the years of 1882-1968.  During that time 4743 people, mostly African-Americans were hung from trees with their bodies mutilated, lacerated, burned and riddled with bullets.  It was a community event.  A lynch mob was more than just the unmasked, yet usually never punished perpetrators.  Pictures show men, women and even children gathered by the thousands to witness the hanging of this strange fruit.  Children were often recruited to assist in the grotesque gathering.  After the hanging people would pose for pictures and even parts of the body would be cut off for memorabilia.

Strange–unnatural–fruit used to hang from trees in America.  Jazz legend Billy Holiday even sang about it…