Inside History: Protest. Revolt & Reform

Holiday doesn’t sing songs,
she transforms them.
William Dufty (co-author)
Lady Sings the Blues
Abel Meeropol had never witnessed
a lynching before. Like many in New
York City during the 1930’s, the
barbarous horror occurring in the
southern states of the USA arrived
to him in the form of a photograph
featured in a magazine. It would be
an image that would stay with him
forever. In 1971 he would later say:
“I hate lynching, and I hate injustice,
and I hate the people who
perpetuate it.”
His day job would be as a teacher
yet he would also write poetry. One
of his poems was published in a
Teacher’s Union magazine. His
poetry spoke about Southern trees
bearing the strange fruit as African
American swayed in the breeze. He
called his poem “Bitter Fruit.”
Meeropol might not have known it
at the time, but soon his poem
would go on to become a song sung
by Billie Holiday that was later
named the song of the century by
Time magazine. That song is
“Strange Fruit”.
Holiday was not the first to have
sang Strange Fruit. Setting his
poetry to music, the song would be
performed by Laura Duncan.
Robert Gordon was in attendance
as Duncan brought Meeropol’s
lyrics to life. He knew exactly who
the song would be perfect for. Soon
the teacher from New York would
play his song for Billie Holiday.
“Holiday doesn’t sing songs”,
William Dufty once said, “she
transforms them.” Holiday wanted
people not only to remember the
song but also take in every word. It
was for this reason that certain
conditions had to be met at venues
where she performed Strange
Fruit. It would the last song on her
setlist, the lights in the venue
would be dimmed with the
exception of a spotlight on her
face, there would be silence and
there would be no bar service during
the performance of the song. Every
performance of Strange Fruit was no
longer a normal song in her set. It
was designed not only to make
people hear, but listen attentively.
Barney Josephson, the founder of
Cafe Society perhaps described it
best by saying that. “People had to
remember Strange Fruit, get their
insides burned with it.”
The power of the song created a
differing set of reactions. For some,
it brought them to tears yet to
others, it provoked walkouts and
heckling. Executives at Holiday’s
record company Columbia, didn’t
want anything to do with the song.
Undeterred, Holiday went elsewhere
taking the song to the small
independent label, Commodore
Records. Strange Fruit, despite not
being released by a major label,
would still reach number 16 in the
U.S charts in 1939.
INSIDE HISTORY 23