Strange Fruit
Redeait G. Meaza
Towson University
Strange Fruit
Will my black and African American people ever have a happy ending? Will we be afraid to sing, write poetry about our trials and tribulations or will we rise and stand for freedom because we no longer want to be consider as a strange fruit, but as one beautiful ripe fruit. To have confident is one thing, but to have courage is another thing and not everyone carriers this trait, but the ones that do make an impact. Now let’s talk about having power and strength through a song.
Why it was created?
“Strange Fruit” wasn’t always a song it was originally a poem called “Bitter Fruit.” “Strange Fruit was composed, originally, by Abel Meeropol, a Brooklyn High School English
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The African American tenets that were displayed in the song is rhetoric of community and resistance because Allan was stating what was going on in communities during the 1930’s without shying away about how blacks were being mistreated not like human beings. Lynching only happened in black community.
Purpose
The only way black people were able to express their pain was through music. Allan felt like for this song to make a more powerful impact he asked Billie Holiday if she could sing it because she has such a strong voice that can really project the message behind the song. By labeling black women's musical discourse as one of voicelessness, I specifically draw on black feminist theories addressing the "politics of silence" (Higginbotham 1992, 266), which discouraged black women's public disclosure of their sexuality, and the "culture of dissemblance" (Hine 1995, 380), which created the illusion of sexual openness while in actuality it "shielded the truth of [black women's] inner lives and selves from their oppressors" (Hine 1995, 380). The purpose of the song is a cry for action. Although Holiday didn’t experience seeing the lynching she was able to grasp the concept of the song. Holiday says, "When [Allen] showed me that poem, I dug it right off. It seemed to spell out all the things that had killed Pop [who died of pneumonia in a segregated hospital ward]" (Holiday [1956] 1984,
The version of the song “Strange Fruit,” by Cassandra Wilson is a piece of music that consists of 4 verses. I have broken these down into Verse A, Verse B. Verse A, and Verse A’. Cassandra’s voice is most certainly the melody of this version of Strange Fruit and is used in all 4 verses. The rhythm of this piece is a 4. The song opens in a high pitch “tinkling” piano, soft flute (that reminds me of the wind bowing) a soft distant sound of an electric guitar and the eerie background bass that has the feeling of darkness and fear. This drew an image of dark and chilling to me.
This poem focuses on the lynching of a African American male. The speaker of the poem appears to console a woman who appears to be distressed due to the events taking place. In the first four lines of stanza 1, the speaker says:
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Many people believe that material things will bring you peace and happiness. That is not always that case though.Everyone at some point in their life had gone through something that they thought would have a major positive impact on their life, but ultimately, it affected them very negatively. These can include anything from money, to power, even to women. Bernard Malamud explains these example in his book, The Natural, with his character, Roy Hobbs. Roy is the Knights star baseball player, when all goes wrong. He starts to chase different women, believing that those people will lead him to happiness in the end. Roy Hobbs is the main character in the book, The Natural, who finds himself in tough situations, and finally discovers that what he wanted from the start, won’t actually make him happy in the end.
In the novel, A Lesson Before Dying by _________, the main character, Grant, is trying to console Jefferson. Jefferson has just been framed for a murder he did not commit, and many believe it is because he is black. Two drunk, white men went into a liquor store, already drunk, and attempted to shoot the owner who, in turn, shot back. In the end of the firefight, Jefferson was the only man standing. When at the trial to convince the jury Jefferson did not actually shoot the people, his attorney realizes his attempts at proving Jefferson’s innocence were futile, and says, “What justice would there be to take this life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this” (8). He is asking the jury to spare the life of Jefferson, by implying that Jefferson is no more intelligent than a hog. The attorney is white, and is voicing the common belief among whites that all blacks are animals. Throughout the novel, Jefferson becomes haunted by the
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The poem’s words echo through your mind, revealing a haunting display. Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, performed Strange fruit. She sang the poem not in a melody, but in a screeching tone creating an alarming show. The timbre of her voice’s pitch was intense. In other words, the way Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit in a serious voice, confirms that the poem is not to joke about because it is based on a true story. It is important to realize, that the poem relates to history because it demonstrates how demented racism dominated in the