Strange Fruit: Graphic Novel Explores Lesser-Known Black History

14:49

June 18, 2014

One of the stories in <em>Strange Fruit</em> is of Noyes Academy, an integrated school in Canaan, N.H., that was destroyed in 1835. Here, the comic panels depict one of the school's former students getting an education despite racism surrounding him at the time. (Courtesy of Joel Christian Gill, author and illustrator of <em>Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History</em>) — One of the stories in *Strange Fruit* is of Noyes Academy, an integrated school in Canaan, N.H., that was destroyed in 1835. Here, the comic panels depict one of the school's former students getting an education despite racism surrounding him at the time. (Courtesy of Joel Christian Gill, author and illustrator of *Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History*)

Many music scholars have written about the powerful imagery in Billie Holiday's 1939 recording of "Strange Fruit," depicting a lynching. A new graphic anthology evokes that image to tell stories of black Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It includes nine little known stories — from the first black U.S. Marshal to an island enclave of free blacks off the coast of Maine.

Joel Christian Gill will be discussing "Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History Wednesday night at the Harvard Book Store.

Guest

Joel Christian Gill, associate dean of student affairs at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. His new graphic anthology is called "Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History."

This segment aired on June 18, 2014.