Strange Fruit song was originally written by a white Jewish teacher named Abel Meeropol in 1937 as a poem. Abel wrote it as an objection against lynching of the blacks (Smith,1944). It was later recorded as a jazz song in 1939 by Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday’s original name was Eleanor Fagan and was born on April 7, 1915. The song has been performed by many artists and translated in many novels, poems as well as many creative works. The Strange Fruit song was listed among the Songs of the Century by the National Endowment of Arts and the Recording Industry of America. Moreover, it has been listed as number one on the songs of the South and as top 20 political songs.
Strange Fruit is a protest song that exposes American racism predominantly the lynching of blacks that occurred in the South. It is a response to the barbaric practice of lynching and racial terrorism of African Americans used to emphasize white superiority after the end of the civil war. The song was released when lynching was a common and socially acceptable practice in the South. Abel Meeropol was inspired to write “strange fruit” after he saw a picture of the lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp in Marion Indiana. Every stanza of the song is about anti-lynching African Americans (Margolick, 2000).
The Strange Fruit song was also recorded by the rapper Danny after his encounter with a hotel manager who was a racist. The hotel manager prevented Danny and his friends from checking into a reserved room just because they were black. For Billy Holiday, the Strange Fruit song has a deeper meaning to her. She battles with social racism as an African American while singing this song. She suffered the hardships of abolition due to the Jim Crow Laws and the harsh treatment of the blacks (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008). Her father was denied treatment and entrance to a white hospital because he was black and succumbed to death due to internal bleeding. The “Strange Fruit” poem follows a lyric pattern, expressing deep thoughts and emotions about the lynching in the South. Many black slave were lynched as a punishment.
References
Smith, L. (1944). Strange Fruit. Washington: Harvest Books
Margolick, D. (2000). Strange Fruit. Billie Holiday, Café Society and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Philadelphia: Running Press.
Shmoop Editorial Team. ( November 11, 2008).Strange Fruit Meaning. Retrieved from http://www.shmoop.com/strange-fruit/meaning.html
