Holiday first sang the graphic anti-lynching song in 1939 at Café Society, the legendary Greenwich Village nightclub with a clientele consisting largely of people to the far left of the political spectrum. This history covers the inception of “Strange Fruit” to its influence on contemporary musicians and the public at large, focusing mainly on its role in Holiday’s repertoire. Margolick’s book is a biography of this song, “Strange Fruit,” written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish man in New York City in the early 1930s, and brought to wide public attention by jazz singer Billie Holiday. 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. Running Press/Courage Books ( Apr 6, 2000) Billie Holiday Caf Society and an Early Cry for Civil Rights
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