Category: strange fruit

+

+ christian fascism, christian nationalism, christianity, fascism, Gerald L K Smith, James Luther Adams, lillian e smith, religion, strange fruit

“Flashes of lightning to quicken our steps”: Lillian E. Smith and Christian Fascism

by Unknown's avatar

I have been sitting on this essay for a couple of years. It is an essay that Emma Williams and I co-wrote in my Lillian E. Smith and Christian Nationalism course two years ago. During that class, we wrote “Christian Nationalism Hurts the Children It Clams to Protect” in Religion Dispatches, and this essay arose, partly, out of that article. Initially, we wanted to submit this essay … Read More “Flashes of lightning to quicken our steps”: Lillian E. Smith and Christian Fascism

+

+ lillian e smith, race, southern literature, strange fruit, white supremacy

Community Complicity in White Supremacy in Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit”

by Unknown's avatar

Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit ends with the lynching of Henry McIntosh and the community members’ reactions to the murder. Following Ed Anderson murder of Tracy Deen, the townspeople, specifically the poor white mill hands, seek vengeance and they accuse Henry of murdering Tracy because Henry moved Tracy’s body off of the road into the palmetto bushes. The fact that Henry is innocent doesn’t matter. The mob, … Read More Community Complicity in White Supremacy in Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit”

+

+ ernest j gaines, lillian e smith, strange fruit, the autobiography of miss jane pittman

Southern Connections Between Lillian Smith & Ernest Gaines

by Unknown's avatar

Early in my career, I became immersed in the work of Ernest Gaines because I worked at the Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. This position allowed me to dig deep into Gaines’ work, utilizing the archives at the center as well as Gaines himself. I had the opportunity to sit down with Gaines, multiple times, and just talk. … Read More Southern Connections Between Lillian Smith & Ernest Gaines

+ christianity, howard thurman, jesus and the disinherited, lillian e smith, punk, religion, strange fruit

Christianity and the Manipulation of Power

by Unknown's avatar

I don’t remember the first time I heard Regan Youth’s “Jesus Was A Communist” (also titled “Jesus Was A Pacifist”), but I remember the impact it has had on me. On the song, Dave Rubinstein sings, over and over again for four verses, “Jesus was a communist/Jesus was a pacifist/Jesus was a communist/Jesus didn’t like the rich.” Reagan Youth pointed out the intersections between … Read More Christianity and the Manipulation of Power

+

+ american literature, georgia literature, lillian e smith, Literature, race, religion, strange fruit

Lillian Smith and the “Sex-Race-Religion-Economics” Tangle

by Unknown's avatar

Over the past week, I’ve been reading Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream for my Women in the Civil Rights Memoir course and her debut novel Strange Fruit for a book club at the end of January. If memory serves, this is the third, maybe fourth, time I have read each of these books. However, I have never read them at the same time, moving back and forth between the … Read More Lillian Smith and the “Sex-Race-Religion-Economics” Tangle

Archive
Follow me on Twitter
Follow Us

Blog at WordPress.com.