Strange Fruit..a History of Lynchings

The terrorist Al-Zarqawi killed and terroized Iraq,
he and Al Queda are like the Klan of the South.

Like the Klan they use religion to commit acts of hate and
violence, we who are black should be the first to
condem such acts.

-Libertas



In the South, lynching was one of the terrorist tactics used to control and threaten the African American. Between 1889 and 1918, a total of 2,522 black Americans were lynched, 50 of them women.

These people were hanged, burned alive, or hacked to death. According to the mythology popular at the time, black men were lynched because they had raped white women, yet historians find that in eighty percent of the cases there were no sexual charges alleged, let alone proved.

People were lynched for petty offenses such as stealing a cow, arguing with a white man, or attempting to register to vote. Social critic H.L. Mencken described the practice as one which "in sheer high spirits, some convenient African is taken at random and lynched, as the newspapers say, 'on general principles.'" No one was punished in the South for taking part in a lynching until 1918.

I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just.--Thomas Jefferson.

















Strange Fruit" is a song most famously performed by Billie Holiday that condemns American racism, particularly the practice of lynching and burning African Americans that was prevalent in the South at the time when it was written.

"Strange Fruit" began as a poem about the lynching of a black man written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym "Lewis Allen" for the work.

The poem was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings
Meeropol said later that he had been inspired by seeing Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. "Strange Fruit" was eventually heard by the manager of Cafe Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Billie Holiday. Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939, a move that by her own admission left her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagry in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father's death, and that this played a role in her persistence to perform it. The song became a regular part of Holiday's live performances.

Holiday approached Columbia about recording the song, but was refused due to the subject matter. She arranged to record it with an alternate label, Commodore, Milt Gabler's alternative jazz label in 1939. She would record two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. "Strange Fruit" was highly regarded and admired by intellectuals, and is in a large part responsible for Holiday's widespread popularity. "Strange Fruit's" popularity also promted Holiday to record the type of songs that would become her signature, namely slow, moving love ballads (although "Strange Fruit" itself is obviosuly not a love song).

Billie Holiday later claimed in her autobiography that, together with her accompanist Sonny White, she put the song to music and introduced the piece into her next show; but the truth is Abel Meeropol wrote the song.


Lyrics

"Strange Fruit" by Abel Meeropol (pseudonym: Lewis Allan)

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,blood on the leaves and blood at the root,black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh,then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,for the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,for the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,here is a strange and bitter crop.

(presented under "fair use" and copyright guidelines for poems)


Meaning
The "strange fruit" referred to in the song are the bodies of African American men hanged during a lynching. They contrast the pastoral scenes of the South with the ugliness of racist violence. The lyrics were so chilling that Holiday later said "The first time I sang it, I thought it was a mistake. There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping."


Impact

The club owner immediately recognized the impact of the song on his audience and insisted that Holiday close all her shows with it. Just as the song was about to begin, waiters would stop serving, the lights in club would be turned off, and a single pin spotlight would illuminate Holiday on stage. During the musical introduction, Holiday would stand with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.

The song was ultimately to become the anthem of the anti-lynching movement. The dark imagry of the lyrics struck a chord, and can be said to have planted one of the first seeds of what would later become the civil rights movement. "Strange Fruit" was certainly ahead of its time, as the civil rights movement was still 25 year away at its release.

The song became an instant success and came to be the piece most identified with Holiday, though it has been performed by countless others including Josh White, UB40, Tori Amos, Pete Seeger, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cassandra Wilson, Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley, Cocteau Twins, Sounds of Blackness, and The Twilight Singers and remixed by Tricky. In October 1939, Samuel Grafton of The New York Post described Strange Fruit: "If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its Marseillaise."

In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.