Symbolism In Strange Fruit

“Strange Fruit”, sung by Billie Holiday and written by Abel Meeropol, is considered one of the first protest songs, being called by jazz writer Leonard Feather. “Strange Fruit” reflects the social environment and racial discrimination experienced by black Americans in the early 1900s. Lynching was one of many products of racism in America, and one of the various results of racial discrimination experienced by black Americans in the United States at the time, alongside disenfranchisement, segregation, labour exploitation, etc.
Although being banned from most radio stations, “Strange Fruit” reached number 16 in the pop charts, highlighting the issue of racism in America by disabling the luxury of ignorance for those living in greater America and bringing the issue of racism and

According to a report published by the National Association for Advancement of Coloured people(NAACP) in 1919, between the years of 1889 – 1918 alone, 2,522 black Americans were lynched, with an estimated 4000 lynchings happening between 1900 – 1940. Written by Jewish Communist, Abel Meeropol in 1937,”Strange Fruit” is widely regarded as the first protest song against Racism in America. After seeing a grotesque photograph of a double lynching taken in Indiana in 1930, Meeropol was prompted to write the poem, which in turn would be set to music and become the song we know as “Strange Fruit. As a member of the American Communist Party in the 1930’s, Meeropol was concerned with equality and civil rights and was opposed to racism and racial discrimination.
Strange Fruit depicts a brutal scene of a lynching. The scene is set from the stand point of a curious passer- by who describes the scene as they approach until they make the gruesome realisation that they are not fruit but in fact bodies that are hanging from the trees, they are witnessing the scene of a