Black History Music Pt. 13
In celebration of Black History Month, the Ear Candy Update intends to celebrate landmark recordings by black artists that have shaped the collective consciousness, mentality, and sense of cool the world over. Next, Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit."
The song is about lynched people hanging from trees in the Deep South. Let's address that right now.
According to the Tuskegee Institute, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the United States, including 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites. More than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-Civil War period occurred in the Southern states. Some of these hangings were professionally photographed and sold as souvenir postcards.
This is a thing we as Americans did. If we are to claim credit for victory in two world wars than we are obliged to claim credit for lynching too.
The song was originally written as a poem by Abel Meeropol who published under the pen name Lewis Allan. He was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in 1903. Meeropol earned a master's from Harvard and went on to teach such luminaries as the author and advocate James Baldwin.
Barney Josephson, the founder of New York's first integrated nightclub, Cafe Society, heard the song and introduced it to Billie. She first performed the song at the club in 1939. Because of the power of the song Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it, the waiters would stop all service in advance, the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday's face, and there would be no encore. I can't blame him.
The responsibility is in taking ownership and endeavoring to move forward, but also, most importantly, together.
According to the Tuskegee Institute, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the United States, including 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites. More than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-Civil War period occurred in the Southern states. Some of these hangings were professionally photographed and sold as souvenir postcards.
This is a thing we as Americans did. If we are to claim credit for victory in two world wars than we are obliged to claim credit for lynching too.
The song was originally written as a poem by Abel Meeropol who published under the pen name Lewis Allan. He was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in 1903. Meeropol earned a master's from Harvard and went on to teach such luminaries as the author and advocate James Baldwin.
Barney Josephson, the founder of New York's first integrated nightclub, Cafe Society, heard the song and introduced it to Billie. She first performed the song at the club in 1939. Because of the power of the song Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it, the waiters would stop all service in advance, the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday's face, and there would be no encore. I can't blame him.
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
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
Them big bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia, clean and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
- 1999: Time magazine named "Strange Fruit" as "Best Song of the Century" in its issue dated December 31, 1999.
- 2002: The Library of Congress honored the song as one of 50 recordings chosen that year to add to the National Recording Registry.
- 2010: The New Statesman listed it as one of the "Top 20 Political Songs"
The responsibility is in taking ownership and endeavoring to move forward, but also, most importantly, together.
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