Strange Fruit Hanging From
The Poplar Trees
“Strange Fruit,”
is a song written by Abel Meeropol. It was first performed by African
American singer, Billie Holiday. It was a very controversial sing,
especially in the time of the civil rights movement. Billie Holiday's
record label, Colombia, actually refused to have her record this song
with them. They did this not just because of the possible backlash,
but also because of the content of the song. This song was about one
of the most horrific parts of the history of the United States; The
lynching of blacks.
Lynching started in
the late nineteenth century. Over three thousand of the nearly five
thousand lynchings that occurred in the United States were lynchings
of black men and women. According the the website for the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the main
reasons that whites thought there was a need for lynching was to
protect white women. However, rape and abused are not actually the
most common reasons. Apparently, even though black men and women were
just given their freedom from slavery, they still could not be
completely free. Whites primarily used lynchings to control what
freedom the blacks had, and to relieve some of the anguish whites had
over the freedom of blacks. Almost all of the lynchings occurred in
the southern states, and this was because of the end of the civil
war, when blacks were finally given their freedom. Many of the more
northern states actually did not lynch people at all. For example,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut were just a few of the
states who did not lynch anyone (www.naacp.org).
It's strange to
think that 27.3% of all lynchings, were of whites. Lynching of whites
did not really occur in the south, but mostly in the west. Arizona,
South Dakota, and Nevada, are just a few of the states that only
lynched whites. There was actually not a proven connection between
the lynchings of blacks in the south and the lynching of whites in
the west. However, one of the main reasons that whites were lynched
in general, was that they were against lynching. Other reasons for
their lynching were criminal acts like theft or murder
(www.naacp.org).
The gradual end of
it was around 1968. That is only fifty years ago. Both of my parents
were born before lynching ended which I find to be insane. Although
it was such a short time ago, it is not a topic that is commonly
discussed. Many white Americans probably prefer not to reflect on
such a dark and immoral time in their history. However, it is
something that really needs to be discussed. Especially with the
commonalities lynching has with present day police brutality. Back
then, songs like strange fruit were used to bring issues such as
lynching to light. The statistics however, really do not end in 1968.
And even though it may not be hanging, nowadays we still have that
strange fruit.
Works Cited
1) “History of Lynchings.” NAACP,
www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/.
Your post this week was very interesting. I had no idea that lynching had gone on as late in time as the almost 1970’s (I assumed there were isolated cases, of course, but not enough for it to be considered a frequent practice). Like you, my parents were alive during that time as well, which is truly unfathomable because as a society, we like to pretend it was ages ago. Also your closing idea that we still have “Strange Fruit” is unfortunately very much true. It’s amazing how a song and it’s ideas can still make sense decades and decades after it was written.
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