My point is underscored in this article--the author is completely focussed "southern violence" "southern opression and injustice", and is completely unaware that the incident in question took place in Indiana, which fought with, and sided squarely with the Union--

My point is not a small one--legal segregation was implemented in Indiana after the Civil War, as it was in many Northern States. Urban ghettos, which were and are a feature of every major, industrial, "Northern" city, were created and sustained by a web of laws, customs, and undiscussed practices that we like to overlook.

"We", meaning Northern Liberals, Intellectuals, Democrats, artists, folksingers, and other high minded and righteously indignant types, have always blamed the South for the institutions of racism, even though we modernized them and updated them, and added some brutal and oppressive touches of our own.

For African Americans, "Strange Fruit" is emblematic of their experience of the brutality of racism, but for the rest, it is a handy way to point the finger at an evil Southern other, and avoid accountability for the very real and non-Southern racism that we live with and accept.