New York City's Abel Meeropol wrote a poem called "Strange Fruit" in the
1930s after seeing a photograph of a lynching. He later put it to music
and it eventually found its way to Billie Holliday, who recorded it. It
was called by Time magazine the "song of the century" in 1999.
His son, Robert Meeropol and his older brother, Michael, were raised by Abel Meeropol and his wife, Anne Meeropol, after the boys' real parents — Ethel and Julius Rosenberg — were executed for espionage in 1953. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for conspiring to give atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
Strange Fruit
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.
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.
His son, Robert Meeropol and his older brother, Michael, were raised by Abel Meeropol and his wife, Anne Meeropol, after the boys' real parents — Ethel and Julius Rosenberg — were executed for espionage in 1953. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for conspiring to give atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
Strange Fruit
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.
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.
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