Strange Fruit

In hindsight, Mrs. Martin’s expression said it all.

Stone faced, she stepped solemnly toward her computer desk, clicked her speakers on, and pressed a button on her laptop. She told us that we could leave the room if we wanted, no repercussions. The room of teenagers sat still in plastic seats. White light splashed across our faces. Billie Holiday began to pour from Mrs. Martin’s cheap desktop speakers. She pressed another button. One word scrolled across the screen.

Lynching.

The beginning of the PowerPoint was simple. Information that anyone born in the South is innately aware of. Slavery happened, and that was bad. Black people were persecuted. Also bad. They said the colored folks were free, but Jim Crow stepped in and tightened the restraints. Martin Luther King came along and sorted all that nonsense out. Now diversity is the norm and everyone is equal- isn’t that great, kids?

Mrs. Martin’s presentation was less optimistic.

The slides--bold black letters against a stark white background-- began to show images. Crude sketches. Artistic renderings. Black and white photos. An endless stream of crooked necks and heavy, limp bodies hanging from ancient and unwilling trees. Billie’s vibrato narrated our slide show, slowly spinning stories of horrors trailing through the years. Our barely pubescent faces were fixed to the screen, forced to acknowledge the lengthy history laid before us.

Strange fruit, indeed.

The last slide was in color. The man depicted was wearing what appeared to be a windbreaker and a pair of modern looking sneakers. This confused me. These accounts were truly horrible, I thought, but...it was in the past. The far gone past. A description popped up on the screen. His name was Michael Donald. The picture was taken in 1981. He was 19. A mob of angry Klansmen went out looking for retribution. They crossed paths with Michael.

Billie’s voice faded out.

Mrs. Martin shut off the projector and turned on the lights. Twenty-four eighth graders sat in silence. I don’t remember what happened during the rest of the class period. The next day was business as usual. We returned to the state-approved lesson plan. Pull out your South Carolina History books, Chapter 6: The Civil Rights Movement.

Like I said. Business as usual.

Mrs. Martin never spoke of the subject again. I don’t remember her getting any backlash for it. There didn’t seem to be any complaints from parents. She was never pulled from the classroom, and her daughter, who was in her mother’s class with me, wasn’t removed either. Surprising, considering she probably showed the PowerPoint to every class she had that day. I often wonder if any of the other students told their parents what happened.

I certainly didn’t mention it to mine.

Being biracial, I was of the few people of color attending the school. My middle school was predominately white and largely suburban. There were two non-white people in my class period, myself included. Mrs. Martin, a white woman, was brazen in her approach, and I don’t know that I will ever fully understand her motivations. My guess, based on what I can remember of her, is that it was frustration at a watered down retelling of history to a demographic that may not truly understand its implications. Simply put, Mrs. Martin likely wanted to let those middle class white kids know what’s up.

I have a white mother and a black father.

I was raised by my mother and her family, and spent most of my early childhood in white communities. There was, at least in my early childhood, a sense of blinding bliss that accompanied my environment. School taught me about slavery, about civil rights, about black history month. My mother’s parents preached kindness and acceptance, and any misgivings with my father were never tied to the color of his skin. I knew my skin was a different shade than theirs, but to me, it was no more than a difference in hair or eye color. I knew racism existed, but it was an abstract concept- a thing of the distant past that our society collectively agreed to move on from. This PowerPoint popped that bubble.

Ignorance is blissful, but defenseless. Discomfort is betrothed to the truth.

I don’t look for racism everywhere. I don’t think that it’s everywhere. There are kind people, and there are horrible people. There are lots of honest mistakes, though malicious intent is alive and well. This is something I’ve come to reckon with as I move through the world with a convoluted identity.

History books love to talk about Dr. King. Most skim over the part where he gets shot in the face.

I go back and forth in regards to how appropriate Mrs. Martin’s decision was. We were children, most of us no older than thirteen, and this woman, based on her own beliefs, decided to show a highly graphic and potentially traumatic slideshow. I write this, nearly fifteen years later, with the image of Michael Donald’s sneakers burned into my memory.

I was just a kid. He was too.

Even now, I remember the chill that crept up the back of my neck as I heard a raspy, haunting voice moan of bulging eyes and blood soaked leaves. How it wailed of the crows coming to feed upon the strange and bitter crop hanging from the poplar trees. I was sickened, but couldn’t force myself away from her mournful poetry. Billie became one of my idols. Fifty years after her death, she still had a story to tell.

I had to listen.

Some stories ask to be retold.

Others force you to tell them.