Happy birthday to activist artist, feminist and civil rights icon Nina Simone, who would have turned 90 today.

In 1965 Simone recorded her own harrowing rendition of "Strange Fruit," the powerful anti-lynching song penned by Abel Meeropol and made famous by Billie Holiday.

Simone once called it "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.'”

Listen to Nina Simone's "Strange Fruit" cover here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnuEMdUUrZQ

#StrangeFruitMOTD #StrangeFruit #NinaSimone #AbelMeeropol #ArtistAsActivist