This week (April 20) marks the 86th anniversary of Billie Holiday's first recording of "Strange Fruit," the anti-lynching protest song written by Abel Meeropol (RFC founder Robert Meeropol's father).
In her honor, we share this wonderful piece in which the NYT invited ten writers and musicians to discuss their favorite Billie Holiday song/recording. Through their eyes we bear witness to her artistry and conviction and gain a window into how personal many of her performances were.
Happy birthday to James Baldwin, the extraordinary Black queer author, poet and civil rights activist, whose life and legacy we celebrate today.
In his honor, we share this intriguing article by The Atlantic praising the brilliance of his letters. The piece begins with a correspondence in 1974 between Baldwin and Abel Meeropol, his one-time high school English teacher who wrote "Strange Fruit" and, along with his wife, adopted the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg:
Today's Strange Fruit Mention of the Day is uber local to the RFC office. It comes from Northampton, MA where a literary gathering, the WriteAngles Conference, organized by the Straw Dogs Writers Guild, will be taking place on Sat., April 6, after a five year hiatus. The keynote address will be given by Shanta Lee, the award-winning poet, visual artist and journalist.
Today's Strange Fruit Mention of the Day comes from MSN's "20 songs that changed the course of musical history."
Billie Holiday's recording of "Strange Fruit" kicks off the list:
Today’s #StrangeFruitMOTD comes courtesy of an update of the classic song entitled, "Estranged Fruit” from Fishbone featuring NOFX. According to a press release, "'Estranged Fruit' is Fat Mike’s update on one of the greatest compositions in this country’s songbook, Abel Meeropol and Billie Holiday’s 1939 'Strange Fruit.'" Learn more and listen to "Estranged Fruit" at https://consequence.net/2023/05/fishbone-nofx-estranged-fruit-stream/
Earlier this month on April 20th marked the anniversary of Billie Holiday recording "Strange Fruit" in 1939. The song was originally written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish activist, poet, and high school English teacher, in protest against the lynchings of Black Americans. (Abel and his wife Anne later adopted the Rosenbergs' two young sons after Ethel and Julius' executions.)
Today's Strange Fruit Mention of the Day comes to us from Torri Williams, a Coalition Leader of the Marion Community Remembrance Project. The city of Marion in Indiana served as the inspiration for Abel Meeropol's anti-lynching song, "Strange Fruit," when he came across a gruesome photo of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abe Smith which took place there.
Torri shared with us the winning entry of a recent Racial Justice Art Contest, a sculpture entitled "Strange Fruit," created by 17-year-old student artist, Claudia McGinness.
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.'”
On this day (February 14, 1910) Abel Meeropol was born. He was a teacher and a poet, most famous for writing the anti-lynching poem, "Bitter Fruit," which he would later adapt to music and retitle as the song, "Strange Fruit."
He once said, “I wrote ‘Strange Fruit’ because I hate lynching, and I hate injustice, and I hate the people who perpetrate it.”
Today's #StrangeFruitMOTD comes from Austin, TX where a Houston native high school student, Douglas Mills, Jr. auditioned for this season of American Idol with a powerful rendition of "Strange Fruit."
The song, written by Abel Meeropol and made famous by Billie Holiday, protests lynchings of Black Americans and is a staple of the civil rights movement.
The emotional and captivating performance left the judges in awe. After giving Mills a standing ovation, country music singer Luke Bryan said, "I'm speechless about it."