Personal Responses

David Hwang :

Music is something I enjoy. However, I have never actually researched an artist and their music before.  Learning about the history of a song and the artist is beneficial because it helps a listener better understand the meanings behind the song and the emotions that the singer expresses.  I knew Strange Fruit is about lynching, but reading about the history and looking at the picture itself was not an experience that I can really enjoy. More importantly, reading about the injustices committed made me sad that people could in fact get away with such atrocious crimes. Researching about Strange Fruit gave me new insights in a song that cannot be realized until understand that time period.

Strange Fruit, written Abel Meeropol, was originally was a poem based on a picture he saw of lynching. Going back to the picture, the sight disgusted me completely. Murder is universally seen as wrong, and yet possibly an entire neighborhood is watching and enjoying this macabre scene. However, the most sickening part of the picture is that the environment feels like a carnival, and the observers are there for entertainment. Amazingly, lynch mobs rarely get convicted of their crimes.

Abel Meeropol once said, “I wrote Strange Fruit because I hate lynching, and I hate injustice, and I hate the people who perpetuate it.” Billie Holiday’s version of the song became insanely popular, hitting number 16 in the 1939 billboard charts. However, Samuel Grafton best describes the impact of the song “If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its Marseillaise.” The song became the anthem for Civil Rights movements and also brought the issue out in public openly. 

Strange Fruit depresses me because such atrocious crimes were being committed, and yet the guilty were almost never convicted. On the other hand, it takes inhuman courage to sing a song so controversial every performance. Thanks to Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol, issues such as civil rights and lynching were publicly acknowledged. Strange Fruit is acknowledged as one of the most influential songs and in 1999, Time magazine called it the song of the century. Researching about the song and the artist gave me insight into the deeper emotions that run in the song, and the pain that Billie must have given to herself in order to even sing the song.

Travis Hearn:
The topic that our group chose for the blog project was “Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and Nina Simone”.  This topic addresses the use of music as a medium for spreading a message, and the people responsible for that deed.  Lynching in the American South was a problem from the end of Reconstruction to the beginning of the Great Depression.  Lynching is a way of killing someone outside of due process of law, and was usually committed by large mobs of white southerners, offended at a minor offense committed by and African American.  I was interested in this topic because I enjoy learning about history, and having lived in the South my whole life, I have been exposed to the evils of racism, and have experienced it firsthand on several occasions.  I was also interested in the origins of “Strange Fruit”, and its fame as one of the first protest songs.

The Civil Rights movement was an important time in the history of America.  However, it got off to a rather slow start, because of the widespread racism in the South.  Racism was expressed in many ways, but the most violent was lynching.  The song “Strange Fruit”, especially as it was performed by Billie Holiday, was one of the first steps to raising awareness about the evils of racism in the United States.  I was interested to learn about the beginnings of the song, in particular about the images that inspired it, and its origin as a poem.  I had only ever heard the song, and this was the first time I had a serious chance to go out of my way to learn more about it.

 Another interesting object of research was the information about Billie Holiday and Nina Simone.  I had never been very interested in either of the artists, though I knew that they had been prominent figures involved in the early civil rights movement.  It turns out that their lives were also very interesting, and that they had experienced a great variety of individual troubles.  It was interesting to read about their trials with drugs and men, and it was caused me to question how music may be different today if Billie Holiday had not died so young as a result of those problems.  I was also impressed every time I watched a video or read an article, and read feedback asserting these woman as the best vocalists who ever lived.

This project helped me to discover more about the music that I listen to today, and about the people that inspired one of the most important movements in American history.  I had also never been entirely aware of the extent to which lynching had taken place in the South, and it was appalling to learn that I had remained ignorant of such an important issue, even if it did cease to be a problem over half a century ago.  Even learning about the song’s role as protest music, it was fascinating to learn that some of the music I listen to today is inspired, directly or indirectly, by events and people that lived and died so long before me.  Though it seems to be in the distant past, it is important to not forget the humble beginnings of ideas that we take for granted today.


Jessica Greenstein:

Our topic discusses racism in America, and how music was utilized to counter these prejudices. When Billie Holiday started to sing at Café Society, she was only concerned with being a singer, but when she traveled with her group and was denied entrance into lodging for the night, Holiday began to realize that a change needed to be made. Similarly, Simone encountered racism early on, as her parents were asked to move from their front row seats at Simone’s piano recital. Both women, hungry to make a change, utilized their gift of song to inspire and help gain support in the fight again racism.                  

Looking at the picture that inspired “Strange Fruit”, I was not surprised that someone thought that it would stir enough emotion to make a change in society. I thought that it was interesting that at first Holiday did not want to do the song. I would have thought that as an influential woman who had experienced racism she would have been excited to sing a song that had the potential to impact so many. Instead, she reluctantly sang it, and it was good that she did. This song became an anthem of the Civil Rights movement just a few years later, when Simone revitalized the song. The story of Strange Fruit shows the power of music. Just the emotion that the song and image creates is enough to make anyone put a stop to the horrible crimes that were being committed against humanity. Music and lyrics help people realize what is going on in the world, and by singing along, one is sharing the message with those who listen on. Just thinking about current times, when the devastation occurred in Haiti, the first way that people came together was to have a concert and sing “We are the World”. This song conveyed our support for the Haitians and conveyed a message of unity. The strong emotion that is portrayed through song is perhaps why protest music is so influential. The joint impact of a group singing the same message has the potential to make a real change.

            This topic relates to our book because the book discusses a white family, living in the time of the civil rights movement. This was an exciting time of integration and unity. The white sheriff finds it difficult, as did many white people, to accept the African Americans, but had they not we would still be living in a world filled with prejudice. I still think that racism exists in the world, but I can’t even imagine it on the scale that it used to exist on

I believe that music has the potential to make a huge impact on the world. Lyrics put the emotions people feel when looking at a picture, such as the “Strange Fruit” lynching picture, into words that can be expressed. In turn, people utilize these words to express a message, in this case, that racism is an unnecessary evil.