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Milwaukee's Strange Fruit Festival Explores Race Relations Through Music and Art

For a second year, the Strange Fruit Music Festival is returning to Milwaukee. Named after the 1939 song made famous by Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit is dedicated to exploring race relations through music and art. 

"Billie Holliday did not write the song, but she made it very popular with her rendition of it. And it seemed like the perfect name for the festival because she’s using music to address racial relations, and that is exactly what we’re doing," says Jay Anderson, a local musician and a founder of the festival. 

Anderson describes last year's festival as "socially retaliatory." The festival was originally organized as a response to the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota.

During the festival, attendees were informed of yet another police shooting. Miles away from the festival, 23-year-old Sylville Smith was shot and killed by police in Milwaukee's Sherman Park neighborhood. 

An announcement was made and people began to leave to check on family members and others in the community. Others, like Anderson, stayed at the festival. 

He says, "It was one of the strongest and one of the most natural bonding moments I think I've ever seen in my life, because nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew where to go, you know? It's not like we're in the middle of it... everybody in the audience was kind of shocked and stunned and then just kind of coagulated." 

This year, he wants Strange Fruit to be a celebration and a place where people can have meaningful conversations about race. Anderson says that despite the increasingly visible presence of hate groups in the United States, he is "actually glad for the visibility" of racist groups. 

"It has to get worse before it gets better, and I think that the visibility is a part of it getting worse before it gets better," he explains. 

The festival starts Wednesday, August 30 at the Washington Park Bandshell, and continues Thursday at Gibraltar MKE and Friday at Company Brewing. 

Joy is a WUWM host and producer for Lake Effect.