Today, Grammy award nominated artist Andra Day is joining EJI to raise awareness for our work with the release of her recording of the iconic protest song, Strange Fruit.
Earlier this summer, EJI launched Lynching in America, an interactive digital experience created in partnership with Google. The website features EJI’s full report in both digital and downloadable formats, with more data, information, and analysis than was previously available online. The site brings together EJI’s extensive research and resulting data with the stories of lynching victims, as told by their descendants. Through audio stories and short documentaries like Uprooted, visitors can experience a detailed examination of the tragic legacy of racial terror lynching in America and its continuing impact on families and issues today.
With interactive maps that include the locations of racial terror lynchings and in-depth profiles of people whose lives were forever altered by these acts of violence, the site demonstrates the enduring legacy of lynching and racial terror in America.
While Ms. Billie Holiday originally sang this song in 1939, its message still resonates today. As EJI director Bryan Stevenson told Billboard:
In this collaboration between Andra Day, EJI, and Google, we use music to express a painful and difficult truth about our nation’s history of racial inequality. Inspired music has the power to expose and confront injustice differently than research, data and words alone. It can heal and uplift us; it’s critical for human rights. Justice work needs a soundtrack that inspires the struggle. It’s energizing that talented artists like Andra rise to the challenge.”