Strange Fruit 2016

Watch Billie Holiday perform Strange Fruit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

Today in class we studied and analyzed (in relation to 1930's New Deal racism) the anti-lynching anthem Strange Fruit (1939), written by Abel Meeropol and famously performed by Billie Holiday...sadly, I feel the message applies today.

Here is my take on Strange Fruit in italics:



Southern trees bear strange fruit.

American streets are stop and frisk.

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root.

Your vigilante "justice" puts us all at risk.

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,

Young boy going out to grab a Sprite, 

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. 

Face down in blood on the street at night.




Pastoral scene of the gallant south,

Corporations, riches, and urban sprawl,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

We'll never again hear his southern drawl,

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,

"I can't breathe" is what one man said,

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Now just layin' there looking up dead.




Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

"Super Predators" for us all to kill,

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

Just send the family the funeral bill,

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

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Oh America, in Death do you trust!