Blood at the Root

The ghastly sight of public lynchings prompted teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol to write “Southern trees bear a strange fruit / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root” in the famous Billie Holliday song. In September 2006, after three high school students in Jena, Louisiana hung nooses from a tree that white kids reportedly had claimed as a gathering space, racial tensions in the town of three thousand escalated. A series of subsequent events led to the arrest of six African-American students for attempted murder, following the beating of a white high school student. The “Jena Six” case became the subject of international protests that the charges were motivated by race. Dominique Morriseau’s 2017 drama depicts the conflict from the points of view of students, including a girl from a mixed-race family, the African-American editor of the student newspaper, and the sister of one of the accused. Guest director Lormarev Jones heads the Raleigh Little Theatre production.