{"id":383,"date":"2017-10-31T04:56:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T04:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/?p=383"},"modified":"2017-10-31T04:56:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T04:56:56","slug":"strange-fruit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/uncategorized\/strange-fruit\/","title":{"rendered":"Strange Fruit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music has always been a powerful emotive force that is able to explain events that words alone cannot. Because of this, it has the ability to shed light on some of the darkest and most feared issues in the world. \u201cStrange Fruit,\u201d sung by Billie Holiday in 1939, brought attention to one of the most horrendous moments of American history: racism and the unfair discrimination towards African Americans. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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As an African American artist in the 1930s, Holiday had experienced racism throughout her career. She had performed in mostly \u201chigh-society,\u201d white venues but wasn\u2019t allowed to even enter the front of the house. She had to take a freight elevator up to the stage because she was not allowed to share the elevator with white patrons. Although she was one of the best jazz vocalists of all time, she truly understood and experienced the heartbreaking reality of racism in America.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The birth of \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d occurred after a Jewish white school teacher, Abel Meeropol<\/a><\/span>, saw a horrific photograph of a lynching of two black men in Indiana.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Outraged and upset, he wrote a protest poem that was later used as lyrics for Holiday\u2019s song. The lyrics depict the lynched black men as \u201cstrange fruit\u201d hanging from trees as they rot in the sun for birds to eat. The song uses physical imagery and strong metaphors, making the scene come to life in the listener\u2019s mind. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Southern trees bear a strange fruit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[Verse 2]<\/span><\/p>\n

Pastoral scene of the gallant south<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[Verse 3]<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Here is a strange and bitter crop<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n