1930s anti-lynching poem written by Meeropol, put to music and made famous by Billie Holiday. Provides possible basis for the name of hip hop group "Strange fruit project.
"Southern trees bear a "strange fruit"
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
Meeropol, 1939
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
Meeropol, 1939
by Jonathan Eakle September 13, 2007
8 extrodinary women (Scorpiana X, Sima Lee, Ms. Pheonix, Yesika Starr, Controverse, Imani, Krislo, Bruja) who came together to stomp out all myths about sisterhood, contributing extroadinary works to the urban tradition of literature and art period.
Strange Fruit was introduced in the year 1937 by a teacher named Abel Meeropol,the poem was created to shed light on the American lynchings that spread through the southern regions like wildfire. Later the poem was made into a song, sang by our lovely Billie Holliday. The song spread awareness about our own holocaust, the Black Holocaust. She sang:
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Today in sheer respect and rememberance of those who suffered, the visionaries who went against the grain of a blatantly racist and hateful time, emerges Strange Fruits. A non profit organization catering to female youth, ages 8-18, dedicated to providing an alternative to the negativity in the streets and through media, by providing a positive alternative of self expression through The Arts, Poetry, (Creative Writing), and HipHop and by offering workshops, counseling, open dialect, AND SISTERHOOD to ensure that needs are met and questions are answered.
www.thestrangefruits.com
I get my 8 servings of strange fruit everyday!
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Today in sheer respect and rememberance of those who suffered, the visionaries who went against the grain of a blatantly racist and hateful time, emerges Strange Fruits. A non profit organization catering to female youth, ages 8-18, dedicated to providing an alternative to the negativity in the streets and through media, by providing a positive alternative of self expression through The Arts, Poetry, (Creative Writing), and HipHop and by offering workshops, counseling, open dialect, AND SISTERHOOD to ensure that needs are met and questions are answered.
www.thestrangefruits.com
I get my 8 servings of strange fruit everyday!
by Rosalia January 16, 2007