Suburban Detroit artist April Shipp has chosen to honor the thousands of lives lost due to lynch mobs in a unique and beautiful way, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Shipp created a 10-by-10 foot piece honoring what she calls the "5,000 souls" lost in lynch mobs.

The piece is aptly titled, Strange Fruit – a Century of Lynching and Murder, 1965 to 1965. Shipp chose "Strange Fruit," after the Billie Holliday song of the same name. The quilt honors those who lost their lives during lynch mobs, whether by being hanged, being burned alive or being tied to a tree.

“It’s terrible to think about, but they’re resting now, and they live on in my cloth,” Shipp said.

Shipp did thorough research, collecting information from news stories and historians alike to compile the names for her quilt. Shipp's work was unveiled at Detroit Unity Temple during Sunday's service. The piece's unveiling is part of an annual ritual where the church unveils a quilt every February, paying homage to American slaves who stitched makeshift quilts from their masters' cloth scraps.

Shipp also used this patchwork technique for her own quilt, in fact.

“You have to look close-up. See, I used different types of black cloth to show the different walks of life these people were from," Shipp said. “Because you could be anyone and get lynched."

“I love what she did with this,” said church member Alma Greer. “There’s so much to learn with this."

Shipp's quilt has been featured in several museums, including Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and is now on display in her home.

lynch mob

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