Term Paper on "Strange Fruit: The Photograph"

/>Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body 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 magnolia sweet and fresh,

And 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 a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop (Lyrics reprinted by Blair)

As powerful as the lyrics are, there is a certain irony about the specifics of the song. First of all, the lynching did not take place in a southern state and it is unlikely that there would be the smell of sweet magnolia in Indiana. Despite the rural scene, the lynching took place in a Midwestern town, in the relatively urbanized setting in front of a jail. And many have been surprised by the fact that a "white Jewish guy" who was not even a professional composer wrote such a powerful song about lynching (Blair, "The strange story"). Although Meeropol wished to tell the truth about the enormity of racism and expose its injustice on one hand, it could be added that he 'wrote out' some very important components of the racialized experienced of lynching. The Midwestern nature of the action was erased. This no doubt made the song much more popular amongst liberal Northern audiences, given that they could comfort themselves that lynching was something that happened 'far, far away' and was something that other people did, not 'their own' relatively close by.

Meeropol's lyrics have been called monumentally courageous. "The '60s hadn't happened yet," he says. "Things like that weren't talked about. They certainly weren't sung about" (Blair, "The strange story"). He was also a communist. Ironically, while the white lynchers got of 'scot free' and proudly displayed their crime in a photograph, because of his political beliefs Meeropol was persecuted mercilessly during the McCarthy era: "New York lawmakers didn't like 'Strange Fruit.' In 1940, Meeropol was called to testify before a committee investigating communism in public schools. They wanted to know whether the American Communist Party had paid him to write the song. They had not -- but, like many New York teachers in his day, Meeropol was a Communist" (Blair, "The strange story"). It should be noted that this was not unusual at the time -- many people became communists during the Great Depression. Meeropol eventually abandoned the party, but in another strange chapter of his life, he adopted the orphaned sons of Julian and Ethel Rosenberg after they were executed for revealing the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union, as no one else was willing to care for the boys and he and his wife had no children (Blair, "The strange story"). Meeropol believed that the execution of the Rosenbergs was a kind of 'state-sanctioned lynching' in and of itself.

In some ways, the song has become more iconic than the photograph that inspired it: indeed, it highlights how inspiration can become many times removed from the original object. Just like the author of "Strange Fruit" created a false southern backstory for the photograph, singer Billie Holiday later in her life claimed to have written the piece. She always sang it at the end of her concerts: the tune became a signal that the show was coming to an end ("Strange Fruit," Song facts). The fact that the two men were accused of murder has also been erased from the history of the picture: in some accounts, the much later murder of a much younger boy named Emmett Till who whistled at a white woman in the South is credited for inspiring the song, although Till's murderers did stand trial (although they were acquitted by the biased justice system).

However, perhaps that is only fitting. "Strange Fruit" is a unique work of art and remarkable in the fact that it became the signature tune of one of the greatest singers of the 20th century even though it was written by a schoolteacher with few connections to the entertainment industry. The photograph is remarkable simply because it was released to an unusually wide audience for a 'souvenir' photograph of a lynching -- but it is one of many such photographs that were taken of such staged events. How many other men were similarly strung up for no reason, but who are not famous because the photograph was not as widely disseminated? We will never know, but thanks to "Strange Fruit" they can at least be commemorated in song.

Works Cited

Blair, Elizabeth. "The strange story behind the man who wrote 'Strange Fruit.'" NPR.

5 Sept 2012. 13 Dec 2013. http://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/158933012/the-strange-story-of-the-man-behind-strange-fruit

Griot, Fred Kaplan. "An iconic lynching in the North." American Black Holocaust Museum.

2012. 13 Dec 2013. http://www.abhmuseum.org/2012/01/an-iconic-lynching-in-the-north/

"People and events: Lynching in America." The American Experience. 2009. 13 Dec 2013.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/e_lynch.html

"Strange fruit." Song facts. 13 Dec 2013.

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=543

"Strange fruit: Diary of a lynching." Radio Diaries. NPR. 6 Aug 2010. 13 Dec 2013.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129025516

Norman, Brian. "Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society 1874 -- 1947 (review)."

Callaloo, 30.3 (2007): 933-936. doi: 10.1353/cal.2008.0021 READ MORE