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."

This video from SALT was produced in 2014 to honor the 75th anniversary of Billie Holiday's first recording of "Strange Fruit."

The narrators take a faith-based/religious lens, which we think is pretty interesting, drawing parallels between the story of the Marion, IN lynching that inspired the writing of the protest song, "Strange Fruit," and passages from the Bible.

The video also speaks to the power of art and performance. Of Abel Meeropol and his writing of "Strange Fruit," Rev. Dr. Frank A. Thomas (one of the two narrators) says,

One day after her birthday, another Nina Simone-focused Strange Fruit Mention of the Day highlights her “five greatest isolated vocals”: “Billie Holiday is the artist...most intrinsically linked with ‘Strange Fruit’... During the ’60s, Simone paid tribute to Holiday by covering the classic. Sadly, the lyrics were still relevant as Black people fought for their rights to be recognized as equal citizens. She was a key player in the Civil Rights Movement, and the raw emotion in her voice throughout this isolated version of ‘Strange Fruit’ will touch your core.”

#OnThisDay, 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 Strange Fruit Mention of the Day features “Tony-nominated and Bessie-winning choreographer Donald Byrd and his Seattle-based company Spectrum Dance Theater” and their Feb 10-13 dance-theatre performance of Strange Fruit at Montclair State University.

As Byrd explains, "For 100+ years, there's been no acknowledgement for the most part about these lynchings. It's a little bit like those people have not been buried. We are offering a prayer up to them. To their memory."

Strange Fruit Mention of the Day: From WBUR’s “7 Albums to listen to this fall,” we’re excited for Naomi Westwater, 'Feelings':

🔳 “Boston’s Naomi Westwater uses their newest release, a kaleidoscopic six-track EP aptly called ‘Feelings,’ to better express a multitude of their own."

Strange Fruit MOTD: “‘The people on my quilt didn’t get funerals’: 10-ft quilt at ArtPrize honors victims of lynching"

"‘They were lynched. They were murdered. They were shot. So, I want [viewers] to look at it as memorial for ppl who have been murdered in this most horrific way,’ says April Shipp. Her quilt ‘Strange Fruit: A Century of Lynching & Murder’ is on display at the Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives.”