Primary Source: “Strange Fruit” Recorded by Billie Holiday (1939) 

Discussion Questions 

  • What was the major social impact of the Great Migration?
  • Identify the major push and full factors of movement?
  • How does Strange Fruit use imagery to explore the South as a place of terror?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Davarian L. Baldwin is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and an OAH Distinguished Lecturer. He is the author of Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life (2007), as well as numerous essays and scholarly articles.