Background

Today, most people associate the words "Strange Fruit" with wacky things, people or events that spice up our daily mundane routines.

60 years ago, the words "Strange Fruit" had in America a much different meaning. Abel Meeropol composed the poem "Strange Fruit" in the mid-1930's to express his horror of the repeated incidents of black men being lynched throughout America.

Under the pen name Lewis Allan, he published the poem in 1936 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine. He later set Strange Fruit to music himself and the song gained a certain success as a protest song in and around New York.

Barney Josephson, founder of Café Society in Greenwich Village, New York's first integrated nightclub, heard the song and introduced it to Billie Holiday, who performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939. She said that, while singing the song made her fearful of retaliation, the imagery in "Strange Fruit" compelled her to persist in singing it. The song became a regular part of Holiday's live performances. Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978, as well as included in the list of Songs of the Century compiled by RIA and NEA. One version can be seen here.

Times have changed in many ways from 1939 and for many younger generations the expression "Strange Fruit" no longer is directly associated with Billie Holiday's song and its imagery.

On a reflective level, Strange Fruit (from a Wandering Tree) regards the progression of human equality in general by focusing upon the transition of the meaning and connotations evoked by words "Strange Fruit". The juxtaposition of the visual imagery from the original 1936 poem/song with the visual interpretations of "Strange Fruit" submitted by contemporary visual artists and photographers offers a new perspective from which to regard current incidents of racial tension which continue to erupt around the world.