About the Blog- Critical Introduction

Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and Billie Holiday’s rendition of “Strange Fruit” eloquently argue that equal rights are long overdue, and that their uneven distribution throughout society can be morally devastating. As English 101 Honors students, we have been exposed to an array of texts epitomizing the issues of the Civil Rights era. We feel “Strange Fruit” and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” are particularly effective in emphasizing the injustices faced by Blacks in America throughout their struggle for Civil Rights. Due to our collective interest in the Civil Rights movement, we are able to acutely analyze the texts’ rhetorical and stylistic elements. We each also bring a variety of compositional and literary skills, due to our educational backgrounds in English.

“Strange Fruit” and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” communicate the necessity to take action against injustice through their depiction of the graphic violence against black Americans.  King’s call for “direct action” implemented through “peaceful resistance” and Holiday’s stylish use of metaphors explain the texts’ exigence. The exigence of “Strange Fruit” and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is mobilization to end hate crimes in the South. The arguments derived from this exigence elucidate the growing need to directly address the basic needs of black Americans, especially in the segregationist South. The texts suggest that the obstacles faced by blacks are so serious that waiting any longer to mitigate these concerns is unreasonable, and perhaps immoral. As it relates to “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “Strange Fruit” our blog argues that the texts provide a basis to communicate the severity of violence  against blacks to all, even to those who do not face the concerns addressed in their writings.
    Though “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “Strange Fruit” are 51 and 75 years old respectively, the messages they carry are very much applicable to contemporary events. We like to think that, as a nation, we’ve progressed so much in terms of providing social equality and human liberties to those in all facets of society. Yet, when you look at cases such as Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin- mere teenagers- murdered because of their race, how can we claim to be so advanced? Has anything really changed in the 59 years since the murder of black teenager Emmett Till? It is due to the apparently endless cycle of racially-motivated crime that these texts still hold such relevance to today.

In terms of organizing the posts, we genuinely believed there was no one correct way to do so. Both texts offer such strong and varying insight into the injustices and consequences of the Civil Rights era, that we found it more important to individually analyze each rhetorical component. This was especially true of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which is 6 pages long. In doing this, we were also able to effectively relate the two texts based on the specific elements on which each post was focused.

Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham” and Billie Holiday’s rendition of “Strange Fruit” appeal to emotion by evoking sadness. King’s letter ultimately appeals to how people should care for one another regardless of race. King uses the notion that racism corrupts young children, which creates a sense of self-inferiority and instills hatred towards white people. The notion that our youngest citizens are susceptible to the same evils racism creates in adults is both shocking as sad. Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” also directly addresses these evils, which are evident through lynching, a major concern during the 1930s. Lynching’s presence as a social sport evokes a sense of sadness in sympathizers as well as a call to act against this practice. Presently, the audience needs to be more emotionally invested in the hate crimes that occur because if nobody is emotionally affected by them, less action will be taken to solve problems against violations of human rights.