The purpose of this blog is to probe the history of lynching in Maryland calling attention to the lives of those who were lynched and to those who were complicit in lynching. It is intended to act as a portal to truth and reconciliation.[1]
Edmund Duffy (1899-1962), Baltimore Sun, December 6, 1931
From the Clipping Files of the Enoch Pratt Free Library
Afro-American, March 30, 1935[2]
By Matthew Crist for his Grandfather’s book,
The Highland County Lynching[3]
“Strange Fruit
Lyrics & Music by Abel Meerpool, 1937
Performed by Billie Holiday
Southern trees bearing a 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
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is a fruit for the crow to pluck
For the rain to wither, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
– Originally published as a poem in 1937 by Abel Meerpool,
aka Lewis Allen, a Jewish school teacher from the Bronx,
depicts Southern trees bearing “strange fruit.”
[1] This blog is intended to follow the genealogical and biographical work of Brett Tyler and Donna Hollie with regard to lynchings in Maryland. There are three sites that deal directly with the subject of lynching in Maryland state wide. The best is Judge Lynch’s Court, http://slavery.msa.maryland.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/
[2] “Maryland was a state steeped in racial unrest. In 1931 a mob lynched an African American accused of merdering a white businessman. Duffy condemned the [lynching] with brilliant juxtaposition, captiioning his cartoon with “maryland, My Maryland,” the state anthem. The cartoon created a greater furor than the event itself. “Outrage was immediate and directed at the wicked cartoonist Duffy, Mencken and the Sunpapers,” wrote Harold Williams in his book on the Baltimore Sun. “Unruly street demonstrations erupted, and the newspaper delivery vans were ambushed and drivers beaten.” Stephen Hess, and Sandy Northrop. American Political Cartoons: From 1754-2010. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publ, 2010, p.99
[3] Self-published by Harold L. Crist in 2013. The fictionalized story is based on the life and times of Crist’s grandfather and great uncles who allegedly led the lynching of E. D. Atchison, a white man, but fled to Missouri before being brought to trial. See The Highland County Lynching, p. 78, and https://sites.lib.jmu.edu/
