Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday (1939)

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Strange Fruit Cover

Strange Fruit is a song based on a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a white Jewish high school teacher from the Bronx and a member of the Communist Party who protest against Lynching of black American people. [1]

The blues-jazz song was released on April 20, 1939 popularized by singer Billie Holiday and has been called as "a declaration of war" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement." [2]

Strange Fruit reminded Holiday of her father who died from a fatal lung disorder at 39, after being turned away from a hospital because he was a black man. [3]

Billie Holiday

Controversy

The song of the same name to the poem, Strange Fruit, was inspired by a well-known photograph of two black teenagers who had been lynched in 1930 in the town of Marion, Indiana. The jail had been broken down by a mob where being held for allegedly murdering a white worker and raping his female companion. Then, they dragged the boys outside, killed and hung them into a tree to all see. [4]

The song of the same name with the Poem titled, Strange Fruit

Check the part of the lyrics of Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday :

Southern trees bearing strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the roots

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees [5]

References