Strange Fruit
“Christ has set us free for freedom. Therefore, stand firm and don’t submit to the bondage of slavery again.” -Galatians 5:1
Another ubiquitous subgenre in horror is stories about zombies. For good reason! Zombies, be they the slow shambling corpses of George Romero’s movies or the sprinting, screaming infected of films like 28 Days Later or Train to Busan, are incredibly disturbing. They should be dead, and yet they continue on in the relentless pursuit of braaaains!
But do you know where the idea of the zombie came from? It was borne out of the folk tales of the enslaved people of Haiti. For many enslaved people, the promise of an afterlife is the ultimate promise of freedom. The myth of the zombie, a corpse reanimated through the magic of a Vodun priest and forced to do his bidding, speaks of a deep fear of the possibility of enslavement even after death. In other words, the entire zombie subgenre exists as the expression of an enslaved people’s fear of still being robbed of free will in the afterlife.
Horror can often exist as a way for oppressed groups to process their collective trauma. Zombies may be the best example of this, but “racial horror” media like Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, the recent remake of Candyman, and Billie Holliday’s song “Strange Fruit” also fit this mold. By fictionalizing collective horrific experiences within popular media, groups are given a voice that might otherwise go unheeded.
The Church, much like horror stories, gives us a place to process our fears and anxieties. Interestingly, we can see much of the same spirit that gave rise to these horror stories within the historical black churches of the American South. Here, enslaved folks and their ancestors processed the fears and scars of having their free will robbed from them through the sacred rituals of prayer and praise. Perhaps the most recognizable song that came from this experience, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, was both an anthem ensuring people of freedom after death and a way to encode messages from conductors of the Underground Railroad as a promise of freedom in this life. The witness of these freedom songs, marches, sit-ins, and prayer vigils both expressed the fears and trauma of enslavement and insisted that freedom can be attained not only in the afterlife, but here and now.
“I looked over Jordan and what did I see?
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me.
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.”
Rev. Ryan Young
