Strange Fruit / Fine and Mellow

Originally a poem written by Jewish schoolteacher Abel Meeropol exposing the horrors of American lynchings, 'Strange Fruit' became a foundational text of the civil rights movement. Columbia Records famously refused to record the controversial material, leading Holiday to cut the session with the independent Commodore label. Her haunting, devastating vocal delivery forced mainstream audiences to confront the brutal realities of racial violence in the Deep South.