Billie Holiday's rendition of "Strange Fruit" remains a testament to injustice decades after the singer's death. File Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
Today, Holiday is revered as one of the most influential musical artists of all time. Time magazine named her 1939 recording of "Strange Fruit" the song of the 20th century. "In this sad, shadowy song about lynching in the South," Time wrote in 1999, "history's greatest jazz singer comes to terms with history itself."
Abel Meeropol , a New York City teacher and songwriter who used the pen name Lewis Allan, wrote "Strange Fruit" after seeing a photograph of a lynching that shocked and haunted him : "Black body swinging in the Southern breeze / Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
Holiday's rendition of Meeropol's song remains as stunning -- and searing -- today as when it was first recorded. "It hits, hard," syndicated columnist Samuel Grafton wrote soon after the record's release in 1939. " It is as if a game of let's pretend had ended ."
I'm a scholar of American religion , literature , and the arts , and I'm interested in the ways that even powerfully secular works draw energy from religious narratives of justice, injustice, truth-telling and redemption. I find "Strange Fruit" a resonant example.
Together, these migrations enabled some of the most enduring musical collaborations of the 20th century. Thematically, the joint productions of Black and Jewish musical artists -- Broadway productions of " Show Boat " and " Porgy and Bess ," Holiday's performances with Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw -- tended to sidestep the brute realities of prejudice, focusing instead on the luxury of ordinary happiness and unhappiness.
"Strange Fruit" was different. The song gazes unflinchingly on the "strange fruit" of the title: hanged, burned and mangled flesh left to rot on a tree.
As Meeropol linked anti-Black and anti-Jewish prejudice, many Black Christians also connected their suffering with that of the Hebrew slaves in the Bible -- and with Jesus ' own.
According to theologian James Cone , "Black ministers preached about Jesus' death more than any other theme because they saw in Jesus' suffering and persecution a parallel to their own encounter with slavery, segregation, and the lynching tree ."
Protestant churches commonly display the "empty" cross, showing the instrument of Jesus' execution, but not his body. The message of the empty cross is resurrection and new life. According to the Christian story, Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead to redeem humankind from sin.
In Catholic settings, one is more likely to find the "filled" cross: the body of Jesus with arms outstretched, hands and feet nailed to the wood. The crucifix emphasizes the agony of Jesus' death and his solidarity with all who suffer.
The filled cross also communicates the message that the crucifixion of Christ -- God in human form -- is not a once-and-for-all event.
"When [Meeropol] showed me that poem," Holiday said of "Strange Fruit," "I dug it right off" because it " seemed to spell out all the things that had killed Pop ." Her father, jazz guitarist Clarence Holiday, died at 39 while touring in Texas. She believed he'd been refused lifesaving care because of his race.
Holiday's "Strange Fruit" evokes the filled cross in its testament to lynching as ongoing reality. "It still depresses me every time I sing it," Holiday said in her autobiography . "But I have to keep singing it ... the things that killed him are still happening in the South."
Journalist Vernon Jarrett recalled seeing Holiday perform in 1947. She was "singing this song as though this was for real , as though she had just witnessed a lynching," Jarrett said of "Strange Fruit." "There was a sense of resignation, as if 'these people are going to have power for a long time and I can't do a damn thing about it except put it in a song.'"
Ongoing testament
Keeping company with brokenness, rather than transcending or overcoming it, also describes Holiday's way of relating to others in precarious circumstances. Her Harlem apartment, she said , was a "combination YMCA, boardinghouse for broke musicians, soup kitchen for anyone with a hard-luck story, community center, and after-hours joint."
Holiday closed sets with "Strange Fruit" from 1939 until the final months of her life. In making it her trademark song, she offered solidarity and faithful witness to racial violence and injustice, not the remedy for these. But her testament carried extraordinary power.
Asked whether he was optimistic about the future, Springsteen answered in the spirit of Holiday: witness, not triumph. "I don't think anybody truly knows where we're going from here," he told writer David Brooks . But everyone "can see right now that the status quo is not okay. And that's progress."
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