![]() ![]() So when I saw a post on Brain Pickings for Gill’s collection of nine lesser-known black history biographies presented in comic-style, I had to check it out. ![]() I’ve just recently gotten over the major stick-up-my-butt about graphic novels thanks to Matt Madden’s One Story #182 selection, “Drawn Onward”, a wonderful piece that introduced me to the heretofore unknown (to me) grammar of comix. I wanted to tell stories that people had not heard. ![]() I looked for stories of people who were not in mainstream history books. What does this have to do with black history, you might ask?… I wanted to tell stories – sometimes great and sometimes tragic – of other people who were also able to “cut the rope.” So, I began to research and draw comics about obscure black history. However, I also wanted to convey that because the rope was still there, we still had a ways to go. I was trying to say that I was in some ways freed from the fear that had plagued my father and grandfather. I listened to the song “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday, based on the poem by Abel Meeropol, and I decided to call my paintings “Strange Fruit Harvested: He Cut the Rope,” showing me with a noose around my neck, holding the frayed end. Now, I felt was the time to follow through. ![]() As an undergrad, I had researched some ideas for paintings based on lynching photographs. ![]()
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