Story* of the Life of a "Strangely" Un-Killable Resistance Song: 'Strange Fruit'

'Strange Fruit,' first published by Abel Meeropol as 'Bitter Fruit,' 1937-present

Once upon a time, there was a man with a strange name who lived in the Bronx, NY, and loved to teach, compose music, and write. The son of Jewish immigrants who fled Russian pogroms shortly before he was born, the man hated violence, social injustice, and discrimination. His name was Abel Meeropol.

Abel lived with his wife Anne, another teacher who loved to act and sing, and taught English at the same public high school that he attended growing up. He had many memorable, gifted students, including one who would one day be very famous: James Baldwin.

Abel and Anne wanted to have children, but their two biological sons were stillborn. When Abel published his poems and songs, he did so using the pen name, “Lewis Allan,” memorializing them both. (Some two decades later, Abel and Anne would adopt and raise two boys left orphaned in the wake of their parents’ controversial execution, after their conviction for espionage-related activities, but that is a story for another day.)

One day, Abel came across an image that he would never forget. The image was a newspaper photo of two Black teens, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, lynched by a white mob in Indiana. The ghastly image, shocking evidence of the omnipresence and brutality of racist violence in America, haunted him.

Abel poured his revulsion, horror and sorrow into a poem he at first named, ‘Bitter Fruit,’ and published in a teacher’s union magazine in 1937. Later, he set the poem to music and changed the name to ‘Strange Fruit,’ the name it bears today…

The song juxtaposes harrowing images of an inhumane, shocking outrage on what would otherwise appear a peaceful, bucolic setting. Its imagery stands as an unflinching reminder of the brutal and unforgivable toll of unchecked racism, violence and hate. The first of three stanzas, which many may find triggering, appears below:

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.

In late 1938 or early 1939, Abel performed ‘Strange Fruit’ for Billie Holiday at New York City’s only integrated night club. Billie agreed to perform it as her last number, that evening. The rest is music history.

The stage lights were turned off; table service stopped; and Billie performed the grim, chilling song. For what appeared to be uncountable time, no one breathed a word. Until one person clapped, applause rose, and turned into a sustained ovation.

In April 1939, Billie turned to a different record company, Commodore Records, to record ‘Strange Fruit’ when her usual record company refused to record it. At first, radio stations would not play it, and Billie worried about performing it due to apprehensions of backlash and retaliation by white audiences. Later, Billie learned to overcome her fear; indeed, ‘Strange Fruit’ became her signature song and, upon its release, the best-selling record of Billie’s career.

Then came the 1950s, and the height of McCarthyism and the ‘Red Scare.’ In this scary time, ‘Strange Fruit’ all but disappeared from the public scene. For a time, the song’s future seemed to be dead.

However, the song’s haunting legacy and lyrics lingered in America’s collective memory, and was not so easily suppressed.

Indeed, lynching persisted in America through 1968. According to records maintained by NAACP, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the US between 1882 and 1968. While Black people comprised the majority (72%) of people lynched, some white people were also lynched for helping Black people or for opposing lynching, as were immigrants from Mexico, China, Australia, and other places.

Civil rights campaigners encouraged constituents to mail copies of ‘Strange Fruit’ to their congressional representatives, in efforts to persuade lawmakers to pass a Federal anti-lynching bill. In the first half of the 1900s, lawmakers tried nearly 200 times to do, but failed, stymied by filibuster by Southern senators. This continued all the way until February 2020, when the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, named after the 14 year old boy whose 1955 death from lynching sparked outrage, finally passed the House and Senate and was signed into law by President Biden.

In 1965, civil rights activist, singer-songwriter and musician Nina Simone recorded her version, calling ‘Strange Fruit,’ “about the ugliest song I have ever heard…Ugly in the sense that it is violent and tears at the guts of what white people have done to my people in this country.”

Since then, ‘Strange Fruit’ has been introduced and reintroduced by diverse artists for new generations. The same year Abel died (1986) at age 83, Sting performed it on an album celebrating the 25th anniversary of Amnesty International. In 1999, Time magazine named ‘Strange Fruit’ the "song of the century;” in 2002, the Library of Congress selected it for the National Recording Registry. Since then, it has been performed and sampled by punk bands, rap and jazz artists, and has gained increased interest over the years.

The lyrics to ‘Strange Fruit’ are every bit as powerful and resonant today as they were in the 1930s, when Abel penned them. And while discrimination, racism, injustice and violence persist, as do forces to inflame them and suppress those who would fight them, so does the will to continue to resist.

‘Strange Fruit,’ one of the most eloquent of civil rights protest songs, and in many ways, an anthem, lives on in the collective imagination and spirit of those who will not allow the truth of our American heritage of brutality against Black people suppressed; and who will not allow the freedoms so many civil rights activists, leaders and supporters have fought, bled and died for, repressed.

*An adapted version of this story suitable for limited English proficient people and people learning English as a second language—and especially, for Japanese students who are doing this—is now available on Professor Louise Haynes’ wonderful Social Issues in Song publication, along with a short interview with me about this song; other songs on social issues I care about; and why I started this blog. You can find the adapted story, and the interview, here.