Symbolism In Strange Fruit, By Abel Meeropol

The Forgotten Dead takes in an account in US History that the problem of lynching did not only occurred in the US Southern states with African-Americans, but it also occurred in the US southwest with the Mexican-Americans.

This poem focuses on the lynching of a African American male. The speaker of the poem appears to console a woman who appears to be distressed due to the events taking place. In the first four lines of stanza 1, the speaker says:

Everyone needs hope in their lives for the good times and the bad. Hope is an essential part of human life, which is sometimes symbolized into objects. Legend by Marie Lu is a dystopian story about Day, a slum sector teen criminal, and June, a wealthy military prodigy. Marie Lu uses Day’s pendant to symbolize the hope and freedom Day and June yearn for.

Opportunity’s life shattered as soon as the first gunshot went off. All because of the other student’s actions that built up, until Opportunity couldn’t stand the pressure anymore.

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a very well written yet short and sweet story that paints a very vivid picture of main problem the times. It expresses the reality of the lynching of the African American community in a way that is very easy to understand. Alice Walker uses vibrant details to bring to light the severity of the problem and what people of that time period went through. The story also showcases a deeper meaning that does not necessarily revolve around lynchings but represents the loss of childhood innocence. “The Flowers” explains the reality of racism and lynchings of the time while also providing an inner lying message about one’s coming of age and loss of innocence.

First, ask yourself how would you feel after hearing the news that one of your family members had been lynched? Throughout the chapters 1-8, we can experience and observe the disheartening history of violence and lies. It is additionally an irritating depiction of a partitioned country on the very edge of the social equality development and an eerie contemplation on race, history, and the battle for truth. Throughout history, the conditions of the lynching, how it affected the legislators of the day, quickened the social equality development and keeps on shadowing the Georgia people group where these homicides occurred. During the 1900s until 19600s various African-Americans experienced various harsh conditions of violence, never being granted the right to vote and being segregated from whites based on their race and skin-color from their white masters. In general racism between whites and blacks can be seen throughout the globe during the era of slavery

The first American slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Their job was to aid in the production of crops such as tobacco as the Virginians “were desperate for labor, to grow enough to stay alive… needed labor, to grow corn for subsistence, to grow tobacco for export” (Zinn 24,25). The slaves that were being brought to the Americas were seen as builders of the economic foundations of the new nation and as time passed the ownership of slaves dwindled but inequality and segregation grew to be more prevalent in the U.S (“Slavery in America”). On January 1st, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order which freed slaves in the United States not within the Confederacy, under Union Control. Two years later the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution which abolished slavery but many Southern States managed to create unattainable prerequisites for blacks to live, work or participate in society. With nearly one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans were still treated just as unequally. Oppression, race-inspired violence, segregation and an unequal world of disenfranchisement lingered across Southern States for African-Americans. The Jim Crow Laws

Wexler’s attention to these details ensures that the lynching victims are more than flat “symbols,” constructed by a foreign and long past semiotic system, to the reader. She writes, for instance, of George Murray, or Dorsey, who had “returned [to Monroe] from the army” (167), after “four and one-half years” of service, in September 1945, that he was a man who had “love for music,” “skill as a farmer,” and a memorable smile (99). In this respect, Wexler accomplishes the same empathy for an innocent victim as the NAACP, in 1946, might have done, and in similar style—as she contends, in parallel fashion to the deceased victims’

Slavery began when the African American people were brought to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Hundreds and thousands of African Americans were packed into a ship. Men, women, and children were crammed inside in every available space with minimal breathing space. This caused majority of the slaves to contract diseases easily. Slaves were considered as movable property and labor workers. Slaves experienced a strain workload, harsh punishments, and the worry that their family members could be sold at any moment. “During the first half of the nineteenth century, renting out excess slave labor to temporary masters for a few weeks, months, or even years at a time was a common practice among slaveholders in Maryland and throughout much of the upper South” (Polgar, 2011).Agriculture became a large part of the economy for Southern farmers. The great amount of cotton grown during this time produced a need for slave labor during the first half of the 1800s. Slaveholders obtained a huge number of slaves to plant, care for, and harvest their crop. “Children were propelled into adulthood by

During the nineteenth century, lynching was brought to America by British Isles and after the Civil War white Americans lynching African American increased. Causing and bringing fear into their world. In the Southern United States, lynching became a method used by the whites to terrorize the Blacks and to remain in control with white supremacy. The hatred and fear that was installed into the white people’s head had caused them to turn to the lynch law. The term lynching means to be put to death by hanging by a mob action without legal sanction. So many white people were supportive of lynching because it was a sign of power that the white people had. “Lynching of the black people was used frequently by white people, their is no specific detail of how many times they had done it, but lynching of black people has lasted from 1882 to 1968. Lynching also is in fact a inhuman combination of racism and sadism which was used to support the south’s caste system,’’(Gandhi).

The caramel rebozo is referred to a “Mexican shawl.” () Throughout the story, the one item that Soledad and Celaya admire so much is this Carmelo rebozo. This rebozo is one that Soledad’s mother was working on before she died. Her mother never got a chance to finish the shawl, but it was given to Soledad. Celaya always wanted the rebozo for herself, and when her father tries to buy her a silk shawl, the evil grandmother says that there is no way a girl like Celaya will ever appreciate such a beautiful shawl. But, when the grandmother passes away, the rebozo is passed down to Celaya, and she treasures this item just as her grandmother did. In the novel Caramelo, by Sandra Cisneros, Cisneros utilizes the symbols of the caramelo rebozo in order to signify destiny, truth and lies, and fights to show the family and its members’ relationships and traditions. Cisneros uses each of these significances in order to show multiple people and events describe a theme. The caramelo rebozo is one of the most important symbols of the novel. It not only ties itself to the theme of security, safety, and leadership, but also to the other symbols presented.

During the 1920’s a new movement began to arise. This movement known as the Harlem Renaissance expressed the new African American culture. The new African American culture was expressed through the writing of books, poetry, essays, the playing of music, and through sculptures and paintings. Three poems and their poets express the new African American culture with ease. (Jordan 848-891) The poems also express the position of themselves and other African Americans during this time. “You and Your Whole Race”, “Yet Do I Marvel”, and “The Lynching” are the three poems whose themes are the same. The poets of these poems are, as in order, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude Mckay.

Lynching was way of life in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. As Wells-Barnett points out, although most white people try to say that they did not want to discuss the noisy, because it will drag the reputation of angry white women, the vast majority of lynching had been completed, white people thought like lynching or burning some black people just to teach them their place. Wells intends to dissolve these myths and reasons into lynching, especially black rape white women. She repeats and the objectivity of the news proves that most black corpses killed black citizens are innocent and that their murders are not punished.

Imagine racism taking over the world, with overwhelming thoughts about how you might be the next victim. Quarrels about whether the best skin is black or white, but always resulting that white is right. Hope would evaporate from an evanescent cloud and Faith became instinct as it was replaced by agony. Everywhere you turned around for help, all you saw were the bodies of those neglected and lynched. Abel Meeropol published the poem Strange Fruit in 1937, after seeing a drastic picture of lynching that traumatized him ever since then. As a result, the poem became a memory to all those who died and is momentous to our history.

(AGG) “The darkest nights produce the brightest stars” (Green). Some people use the light of the stars to find guidance in their lives. (BS-1) In the book “Under the Persimmon Tree”, Najmah, the main character, views the stars by the way her family has influenced her to think of them. (BS-2) Throughout the story, Najmah loses a lot of hope during her journey, and stars reflect this by their invisibility. (BS-3) Stars represent hope and this helps Najmah get through rough times. (TS) Suzanne Fisher Staples uses symbolism throughout the book “Under the Persimmon Tree” to make the reader understand the internal conflicts Najmah faces.