Strange+Fruit

To Kill a Mocking Bird [|Lady Sings the Blues-Diana Rose-Strange Fruit] [|The Man-Robert Meeropol] Lynching Strange Fruit Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
 * By Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol (1937) **

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

The photograph that was cited by the songwriter as the inspiration for the song. "Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by [|Billie Holiday], who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by the teacher [|Abel Meeropol] as a poem, it exposed American [|racism], particularly the [|lynching] of [|African Americans].