RACES: No Neckties

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

Thebulging eyes and the twisted mouth;

Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh—

And the sudden smell of burning flesh . . .

—Strange Fruit

Lewis Allan's macabre picture of lynching has faded away. In 1953, for the second year running (and for the second time since the records were begun in 1912), there were no lynchings in the U.S., according to Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. In making the announcement last week, Tuskegee concluded that "lynching as traditionally defined and as a barometer for measuring the status of race relations . . . seems no longer to be...

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