20 Protest Songs That Matter: No. 5

'Strange Fruit'
--Billie Holiday (1939)

Rebelling Against: Lynching!

Songwriter Abel Meeropol was a Bronx schoolteacher who wrote a poem in response to a gruesome photo from the Deep South. Invariably described as "chilling" – the "strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees" are the bodies of hanged black men – the song is often noted as a critical catalyst for the civil rights movement.
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