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 ...

Abel Meeropol was an English teacher in New York City in the 1930s who, purportedly upon seeing a photograph of two black men lynched in Indiana, wrote a poem about it called “Strange Fruit.” He set ...

Last year, North Carolina rapper Rapsody was searching for an introductory track for her new album, Eve, a concept LP about the history and power of black women. Her producer suggested a song she didn ...

According to recent findings by the Equal Justice Initiative, nearly 4000 Black individuals were lynched by white Southerners in the United States between 1877 and 1950. These brutal, racist killings ...

Billie Holiday recorded her iconic version of Strange Fruit on 20 April 1939. Eighty years on – in the first of our Songs that Made History series – Aida Amoako explores how a poem about lynching ...

Hulu's The United States vs. Billie Holiday opens with titles stating a historic fact: "In 1937, a Bill to finally ban the lynching of African-Americans was considered by the Senate. It did not pass." ...