What is the song Strange Fruit protesting?
lynching
First recorded in 1939, the protest song Strange Fruit came to symbolise the brutality and racism of the practice of lynching in America’s South. Now, more than seventy years later, such is the song’s enduring power that rapper Kanye West sampled the track on his latest album Yeezus.
Is Strange Fruit a political song?
Written by a Jewish communist called Abel Meeropol, Strange Fruit was not by any means the first protest song, but it was the first to shoulder an explicit political message into the arena of entertainment. Unlike the robust workers’ anthems of the union movement, it did not stir the blood; it chilled it.
Why was the song Strange Fruit written?
Originally a poem called Bitter Fruit, it was written by the Jewish school teacher Abel Meeropol under the pseudonym Lewis Allen in response to lynching in US southern states. “I wrote Strange Fruit because I hate lynching, and I hate injustice, and I hate the people who perpetuate it,” Meeropol said in 1971.
What is the metaphor in the song Strange Fruit?
Through an extended metaphor xtended metaphor in which black victims’ bodies are presented as the “strange fruit” dangling from “Southern trees,” the poem brings the horrors of racism to vivid and uncomfortable life, insisting that such violence is utterly grotesque and inhumane.
Was Abel Meeropol white?
Meeropol was born in 1903 to Russian Jewish immigrants in The Bronx, New York City.
How did Strange Fruit impact the Civil Rights Movement?
The NAACP had been waging a battle against the lynching of African Americans. Strange Fruit quickly became an anthem of the anti-lynching movement and the first significant song of the then fledging Civil Rights Movement. The song forced listeners to confront the brutality of lynching.
Who is the intended audience of Strange Fruit?
The audience at Café Society was mostly white; the music was mostly black; Meeropol was the Jewish “middleman” bringing the two together. But “Strange Fruit” began to turn the power dynamics of that old relationship upside down.
What is the meaning of Here is a strange and bitter crop?
The speaker ends Strange Fruit with the line, “here is a strange and bitter crop.” While the South was known for its cotton farms along with other crops, the speaker believes the memory of this bitter crop will rise above them all so that the South would be remembered for the murder of innocent people.
What is the tone of the song Strange Fruit?
The tone of the song, “Strange Fruit” is a darkness that is haunting. It has a powerful feeling that sticks, and is hard to forget.