In December 1999, Time magazine named the song “Strange Fruit” as the “song of the century,” and three years later, the Library of Congress included it in its list of the 50 most significant recordings of the past century.
This song is believed to have influenced the human rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
But what is this song, and why bring it up? Perhaps it offers lessons from humanity’s past, ones we should hope never to revisit.
The lyrics were written by a Bronx high school teacher, Abel Meeropol, who used the pseudonym Lewis Allan and first published the poem in a literary journal in 1936, later setting it to music himself.
The haunting lines read: “Southern trees bear a strange fruit / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root… / scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh / Then the sudden smell of burning flesh. / Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck / For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck / For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop / Here is a strange and bitter crop.”
This “strange fruit” was the lifeless bodies of two black men, lynched purely because of their race, then left hanging on a tree in plain sight, exposed to the elements and scavenging crows—a scene documented in photographs of the time.
At first, no one dared to perform the song until Billie Holiday, convinced despite the risk it posed to her career, took it on.
Her record label refused to produce it, but another label stepped in, releasing it in 1939.
The song became an anthem against racism, with Holiday’s heart-wrenching performance stirring countless listeners and perhaps helping, alongside other protests, to shift societal attitudes.
During that era, it wasn’t only black people who faced discrimination. Greek immigrants were targeted. Restaurant signs barred entry to “rats and Greeks.”
Today, the police are investigating attacks on foreign workers in food delivery, often referred to as “delivery drivers“—a term that subtly diminishes the human aspect.
What, aside from racism, could motivate these attacks? Media pundits offer an excuse for the fascists, arguing they feel “replaced” by foreigners.
But these attacks target not the powerful, but the vulnerable, the easy prey.
There’s no need for complex analysis.
Racism first and foremost threatens the social fabric of our communities. If we don’t care about the delivery drivers, perhaps we should care about that.