Dr. Hobbs, Executive Director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute at Edward Waters University, examines Florida’s painful history of lynching and racial violence, with a focus on the life and efforts of civil rights activist Harry T. Moore’s fight against lynching and the Klu Klux Klan that led to his death in a bombing of his home. Dr. Hobbs points to the need for truth, reconciliation, and memorialization in addressing the painful legacy of racial violence in the state. Strange Fruit refers to a song made famous by Billie Holiday about the lynching of African Americans in the South.

Tameka Bradley Hobbs is a social justice leader, educator, and author, with expertise in African American history, public history, and antiracist education. Hobbs is the author of Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida, which won the 2015 Florida Book Award for Florida Nonfiction, and the 2016 Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award from the Florida Historical Society.

This program is part of exhibit programming for Strange Fruits on view through April 28. This exhibition gathers a selection of recent work by Marielle Plaisir, a multimedia artist based in Miami, Florida. Working across various disciplines, from painting to drawing, to sculpture, to fashion and performance, Plaisir creates intense visual experiences that explore her French-Caribbean heritage against the backdrop of Postcolonialism.

This event is part of Florida Humanities’ Florida Talks program.