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#shipp

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Chuck Darwin

On This Date:

On 20 April 1939, US jazz singer
#Billie #Holiday released the song
"#Strange #Fruit."

The song was originally written as a poem by a Jewish songwriter, #Abel #Meeropol,
who wrote it in protest and response to the photo of
the #lynchings of J. Thomas #Shipp, 18, and Abraham S. #Smith, 19 in Marion, Indiana.

Meeropol performed this poem under a pseudonym, Lewis Allan, with the name "Bitter Fruit" and eventually published this work in a teacher’s union publication under the title "Strange Fruit."

Meeropol got it handed to a nightclub owner who showed it to Billie Holiday.
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Southern trees bear a strange fruit
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 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

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