Strange Fruit "Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred chiefly in the South but also in other regions of the United States.[2][3] Meeropol set it to music and with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York venues, including Madison Square Garden. The song has been covered by artists, as well as inspiring novels, other poems and other creative works. In 1978, Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[4] It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Poem and song[edit] Billie Holiday's performances and recordings[edit] She recorded two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. Influence[edit] Honors[edit] Covers[edit]
Lynching in the United States Lynching, the practice of killing people by extrajudicial mob action, occurred in the United States chiefly from the late 18th century through the 1960s. Lynchings took place most frequently against African American men in the Southern US from 1890 to the 1920s with a peak in 1892. Lynchings were also very common in the Old West, although victims were of various races.[1] Lynching in the South is associated with the reimposition of white supremacy by whites after the American Civil War. The granting of U.S. Constitutional rights to freedmen in the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) aroused anxieties among white Southerners, who were not ready to concede social status to African Americans, blaming the freedmen for their own wartime hardship, economic loss, and forfeiture of social and political privilege. The Tuskegee Institute has recorded 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites being lynched between 1882 and 1968 with the annual peak occurring in the late 1800s.[2] Name origin[edit] The West[edit]
Amnesty International - working to protect human rights worldwide Persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation, imprisonment, fear, or pain are all factors that may establish persecution. Even so, not all suffering will necessarily establish persecution. International law[edit] As part of the Nuremberg Principles, crimes against humanity are part of international law. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:... The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which is binding on 111 states, defines crimes against humanity in Article 7.1. Religious persecution[edit] Religious persecution is systematic mistreatment of an individual or group due to their religious affiliation. Atheists[edit] Atheists have experienced persecution throughout history.
The Nuremberg Race Laws At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights. The Nuremberg Laws, as they became known, did not define a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. For a brief period after Nuremberg, in the weeks before and during the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, the Nazi regime actually moderated its anti-Jewish attacks and even removed some of the signs saying "Jews Unwelcome" from public places.