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#shipp — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #shipp, aggregated by home.social.

  1. On This Date:

    On 20 April 1939, US jazz singer
    #Billie #Holiday released the song
    "#Strange #Fruit."

    The song was originally written as a poem by a Jewish songwriter, #Abel #Meeropol,
    who wrote it in protest and response to the photo of
    the #lynchings of J. Thomas #Shipp, 18, and Abraham S. #Smith, 19 in Marion, Indiana.

    Meeropol performed this poem under a pseudonym, Lewis Allan, with the name "Bitter Fruit" and eventually published this work in a teacher’s union publication under the title "Strange Fruit."

    Meeropol got it handed to a nightclub owner who showed it to Billie Holiday.
    ---

    Southern trees bear a strange fruit
    Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
    Black bodies 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 magnolias, sweet and fresh
    Then 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 the tree to drop
    Here is a strange and bitter crop

    stories.workingclasshistory.co