Essay #1-Draft

The song, "Strange Fruit" written by Allan, Lewis, Pearl, Maurice Wiggens, and Dwayne P. and sung by Billie Holliday was about the mistreatment of African-Americans before and during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1050' and 1960's. The purpose for the song, "Strange Fruit" was to describe the beauty of the South as well as its ugly side of living in the South during that time of lynching, dogs attacking people, etc. "Southern trees bear a strange fruit (first line of the first stanza), the first line describes the trees in the southern states having "exotic fruits" hanging from the branches. In other words, the "strange fruit" are the young African-American men and women also known as Negro or Colored were being hung from the trees. "Blood on the leaves and blood at the root" (second line of the first stanza), can be a metaphor by saying that the blood coming from their bodies can fall on the leaves and sink into the roots of the trees. In the second stanza, "Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh" (third line) and "Then the sudden smell of burning flesh" (fourth line). It describes the beautiful smell of magnolias saying that it can make you feel comfortable about living in the South, but at the same time you get the scent of burning flesh stinging your nose because these innocent young African-American men and women may have been burned by the white supremacists or by the sun. Overall, the song is about the damaging effects of racism and to bring America's attention to what was going on at that time. Even though the song painted an ugly picture into what was happening in the South in the 1950's and 1960's, it had to be done in order to come up with realistic solutions to solve this ongoing problem that has gone on for so many years.

I'm still working on the rest of the paragraphs, this is what I have so far.

My thoughts on "Strange Fruit".

When I read the lyrics and listened to "Strange Fruit" performed by Billie Holiday, I felt that she was telling a gruesome story of how African-Americans during the 1950's and 1960's were being treated in various negative ways simply because of the color of their skin. As it was said in the second stanza, "Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh". Basically, she was telling us about how good the magnolias smells and the beauty of the South, however; she was also talking about how young African-American men were being lynched by white people and left there to die. It was like they were being burned by the sun or by the angry white people. "Here is the fruit for the crows to pluck..." was lie a metaphor for the birds to pick at the decaying flesh hanging from the tree branches saying that they can easily spot a deceased body from miles away. Overall the song was about the worse cases of racism occuring in the South and getting the nation's attention into what was going on at that particular time.