Saturday, February 25, 2012

Anti-Lynching Legacy of Ida B. Wells

In last dozen years, Northwestern University journalism students and their professor have been instrumental in proving the innocence of many prisoners, several of whom had been sentenced to death. Their investigative journalism sparked the ending of the death penalty in Illinois

Lynching prompted the classic Billie Holiday song,"Strange Fruit," which she recorded in the late 1930s over the objections of her record company: "Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees"

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