A BLACK woman singing, "Strange fruit, Southern trees bear strange fruit…" Her voice like a whisper blown through a shattered bamboo flute.

It is Billie Holiday. Jazz poetry.

Blood on the leaves Blood at the root Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

History tells that Columbia Records refused to record this song which was composed in the mid-1930s. It was only in 193

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