Strange Fruit: Who's Hanging Black Men?

At least 5 Black men found hanging since George Floyd's murder

By James R Smith

At what point does a pile of circumstantial evidence bend to become a near certainty? It happened with the JFK and Martin Luther King assassinations, and it may someday explain why so many Black men are dying, and threats are flying.

Robert Fuller was part of the growing Black community in the Antelope Valley, north of Los Angeles. Around 3 am on June 10 his body was spotted hanging from a tree near Palmdale City Hall. The 24-year-old Fuller had been in good spirits, not depressed at all, yet police immediately ruled his death a suicide. Not everyone believes he killed himself. Protests have already begun in Palmdale.

Malcolm Harsch, 38, who had a good relationship with his family, although he was sometimes homeless, was found hanging from a tree outside the Victorville Public Library. Victorville and Palmdale are both in the high desert and are about 50 miles apart. He was found on May 31,

Dominique Alexander, 27, of Kingsbridge Terrace in the Bronx, NY, was found, June 9, hanging from a tree in Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan. Another suicide, said police. Not true said family and friends.

An unknown man, variously identified as Black or Latino, was found hung outside a store in Shady Acres, a Houston suburb on June 15.

Also in Houston, a 17-year-old Black teenager was found hanging from a tree outside Ehrhardt elementary school, which was not his school. He was a student at Klein High school.

In 2019, Titi Gulley, 31, a Black transient, trans woman, was found hanging from a tree near Portland, OR, in Rocky Butte Park, on May 27. She was known by friends and family as a cheerful, helpful, and loving person. Police refused to investigate her murder due to “lack of public interest,” according to the Portland Mercury. Friends, and her mother, believe she was murdered, although the Portland Police Bureau ruled her death to be a suicide. Her death was originally reported on Twitter as being in 2020, but she had died the previous year. It seems that police everywhere are reporting Black deaths by hanging as suicides.

US Congressmember Al Green, who represents Houston, played several audiotapes to an audience on June 13 of death threats, particularly by lynching. He had recently called for President Trump’s impeachment, which was mentioned in several of the racist threats.

And in Oakland, California, multiple nooses were found hanging from tree branches at a public park, according to a statement by the city’s mayor, Libby Schaaf, June 16.

What does it all mean? The police could be correct that these are a spate of unrelated suicides. Or alternatively, they could be the response to the massive protests for George Floyd by individuals or an organization of white supremacists fascists. If this scenario is true, it would have to be a nationwide group of killers who are in touch with each other. Does this make the cops the good guys? Not at all. Police departments across the country are full of white supremacists, who may be part of a plot to lynch Black men, or may be in touch with those who are doing it.

At least, three of the hangings were adjacent to public buildings – a city hall, a public library and a public school (although the wrong school). Could this be a visual statement by this hypothetical outlaw group to say that we are everywhere, we show what we have done to you in the most public locations? If they are abducting random Black men, then it makes it harder to catch them since their target could be anyone.

Why would they choose to lynch? Because this was the preferred terrorist method of the Klu Klux Klan for a hundred years. From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States, according to the NAACP.  Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black. The remainder included Mexicans, Chinese, and even whites, mainly for helping Blacks. Lynching did not require a trial. Often the word of a white man or woman was taken as proof of crime, which might be consorting with, or even looking at, a white woman.

It seems impossible that if a Black man was contemplating suicide that he would choose hanging himself. It would be as if the hand of a white racist was reaching out to kill him. There are many easier ways, that are less burdened by history, to kill oneself.

Many people commit suicide, but it is also a common bogus explanation of the sudden death of a prominent social activist, or the cover story for murder. Apparently, it is a time-saver for racist cops who don’t care about the deceased and don’t want to go to any trouble for him.

Lyrics to Strange Fruit, written by Abel Meeropol in 1937, and made popular by Billie Holiday, and later, was a hit for Nina Simone and others.

Southern trees bear 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 magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop.