<P> `` Strange Fruit '' is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday , who first sang and recorded it in 1939 . Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937 , it protested American racism , particularly the lynching of African Americans . Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century , but continued there and in other regions of the United States . According to the Tuskegee Institute , 1,953 Americans were murdered by lynching , about three quarters of them black . The lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree 's fruit with lynching victims . Meeropol set it to music and , with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan , performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s , including Madison Square Garden . </P>
<P> `` Strange Fruit '' is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday , who first sang and recorded it in 1939 . Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937 , it protested American racism , particularly the lynching of African Americans . Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century , but continued there and in other regions of the United States . According to the Tuskegee Institute , 1,953 Americans were murdered by lynching , about three quarters of them black . The lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree 's fruit with lynching victims . Meeropol set it to music and , with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan , performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s , including Madison Square Garden . </P>
what is the strange fruit in the song
what is the strange fruit in the song
lynching victims
lynching victims