“We were told that we were going to go live with them,” Robert Meeropol, the youngest son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, recently told me of meeting his adoptive parents for the first time. Through this daisy chain of personal ties, the Meeropols were ultimately able to adopt Robert and Michael. He wrote "Strange Fruit" (1937), which was recorded by Billie Holiday. It is long past time that we claimed our past, and publicly narrated our stories—stories like Abel and Anne Meeropol’s—and won back the (currently Sorkinized) political ground in the popular imagination. In 1937, after seeing a photo depicting the lynching of a black man in the south, Bronx-born high school teacher Abel Meeropol wrote a poem entitled "Strange Fruit" that begins with the words: "Southern trees bear a strange fruit / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root." [17] Gabler worked out a special arrangement with Vocalion Records to record and distribute the song.[18]. In an article written by BBC Meeropol is quoted saying, “I wrote Strange Fruit because I hate lynching, and I hate injustice, and I hate the people who perpetuate it.” Germany draws another line in the sand for the U.S. Twitter’s ban on Trump will only deepen the U.S. tribal divide, Marxism and feminism – Marxism and Women’s Liberation extract, American capitalism’s endless military drive, were arrested in 1950 after being accused of sharing nuclear secrets with the Soviets, photographs of Robert and Michael Rosenberg, a real effect on liberal political discourse, International Commission of Inquiry to open hearings on racist police violence in the U.S. on MLK Day, “Your Economics Professor is almost Certainly a Charlatan”, The Continuing Korean War in the Murderous History of Bombing, Disability and Welfare under Monopoly Capitalism, Fighting the “Immigrant Threat” Narrative, New! I would sidestep David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg’s brother who implicated her and Julius in the spy ring, and on whose testimony much of the evidence in the case relied. I think that misses the truth. Abel Meeropol's biography and life story. (1) Abel Meeropol, Strange Fruit (1939) Strange Fruit. The Meeropol boys today are in their 70s. First performed by Meeropol's wife and their friends in social contexts,[10] his protest song gained a certain success in and around New York. Perhaps you’ve already guessed the secret behind this odd convergence of people. By 1953, photographs of Robert and Michael Rosenberg, in suits and Brooklyn Dodgers caps, had been plastered across newspapers for three years. But there was only so much protection a network of friends could provide each other. Du Bois. Films like Lincoln (2012), On The Basis of Sex (2018), and, most recently, Sorkin’s 2020 drama The Trial of the Chicago 7 lean into top-down proceduralism and emphasize the enduring, unshakeable nature of American institutions. In the 1930s, the Communist Party USA swelled to about 80,000 members at the height of its popularity. Crowdsourcing funds for left-wing art won’t be an easy task either. The Meeropols were living back in New York City in 1954 when they adopted the Rosenberg boys. [2] The song has been called "a declaration of war" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement". It was very artistic. I would instead focus my story on the left-wing community in New York City who rallied around the Rosenberg family. In her 1956 autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday suggested that she, together with Meeropol, her accompanist Sonny White, and arranger Danny Mendelsohn, set the poem to music. ‘Strange Fruit’ by Abel Meeropol is a poem on the genocide of black people in America. It also made me think about how small and secretive the left was for so many decades, and in some ways continues to be. The tragic effect gets embodiment in the poem by the use of Meeropol’s bitter irony. The Party at the time was a hotbed of creative activity. To acknowledge this fact is to acknowledge the need for ambitious left-wing storytelling that can act as a counternarrative. Blood on … Columbia gave Holiday a one-session release from her contract so she could record it; Frankie Newton's eight-piece Café Society Band was used for the session. He published it in a union publication in 1937 and then set it to music. Perhaps you already know what the Du Bois’, the Meeropols, and the Rosenbergs all had in common. Meeropol, a member of the American Communist Party, using the pseudonym, Lewis Allan, published the poem in the New York Teacher and … “There was no regular job,” Robert Meeropol recalls. He also attended a socialist reading group that the Communist Party ran for Hollywood screenwriters. The song was highly regarded; the 1939 recording eventually sold a million copies,[7] in time becoming Holiday's biggest-selling recording. His type of artistry was ideal for writing politically powerful songs. The poet presents an image of a tree that bears strange fruit. [30][31], Billie Holiday's performances and recordings, Last edited on 30 December 2020, at 15:36, Review: Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights, "Strange Fruit is still a song for today", "The Strange Story of the Man Behind 'Strange Fruit, "Strange Fruit: Anniversary Of A Lynching". It was here that a news bulletin interrupting their Yankees game informed them of the hour of their parents’ impending execution. “Strange Fruit” is a poem written by American-Jewish songwriter and poet Abel Meeropol in 1937, and was famously covered and recorded by Billie Holiday (Eleanora Fagan) in … Other reports say that Robert Gordon, who was directing Billie Holiday's show at Café Society, heard the song at Madison Square Garden and introduced it to her. But the Meeropols won the legal battle and we were reunited with them in the fall of 1954. At the party, perhaps standing off to the side of the partygoers, is the poet-songwriter Abel Meeropol (also known by his pen name, Lewis Allan), the author of famous anti-lynching song, “Strange Fruit.” He stands beside his wife, Anne Meeropol, a public school teacher and union organizer. Abel Meeropol wrote Strange Fruit after seeing a photograph of a lynching. Michael and Robert Rosenberg went to live with the Meeropols in January of 1954. Subscribe to the Monthly Review e-newsletter (max of 1-3 per month). Holiday recorded two major sessions of the song at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. Meeropol is the adopted son of a Jewish schoolteacher, Abel Meeropol, who saw one of these postcards in the 1930s and was prompted to write the song Strange Fruit - … "Strange Fruit" originated as a poem written by Jewish-American writer, teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol, under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, as a protest against lynchings. Holiday approached her recording label, Columbia, about the song, but the company feared reaction by record retailers in the South, as well as negative reaction from affiliates of its co-owned radio network, CBS. Abel and Anne are going to be their new parents. A Land Grant in Maine: The Gift That’s Been Giving Since 1767, Let’s Get Serious About Inequality and Socialism, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To be sure, rebuilding those links in the chain of memory and teasing out the secrets of the American left won’t be an easy task. Abel and Anne Meeropol deciding to adopt the sons of the Rosenbergs, and their being in a position to actually do so, was one of those convergences so poetic it doesn’t seem real. Hardy. ... Jewish schoolteacher and union activist from New York City named Abel Meeropol, who was outraged after seeing a photograph of a horrific lynching in a civil-rights magazine. The sons of accused spies, taken under the wings of famous civil rights icons, wind up in the care of radical artists and activists. Because Gabler worried the song was too short, he asked pianist Sonny White to improvise an introduction. She said that singing it made her fearful of retaliation but, because its imagery reminded her of her father, she continued to sing the piece, making it a regular part of her live performances. Thankfully though Abel Meeropol, a American songwriter, took the poem and turned it into something very distinguished. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Strange FruitWritten by Abel Meeropol as a poem.Famously performed by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. The left would go crazy over Jewish American dissidents Abel and Anne Meeropol if they were alive today. [9] During the musical introduction to the song, Holiday stood with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer. Their tale is a radical epic so poignant that one wonders where the 10-part miniseries is. This was a radical union and many of its members were also members of the Communist Party. The new movement needs its own works of art, and the means to make those works are within reach. Abel was a public school English teacher (he taught a young James Baldwin at Dewitt Clinton High School in the Bronx in the early 1940s) who gave half his salary to the Communist Party. It was most famously performed by Billy Holiday, who first sang “Strange Fruit” in 1939. "[21] In an attempt to have a two-thirds majority in the Senate that would break the filibusters by the southern senators, anti-racism activists were encouraged to mail copies of "Strange Fruit" to their senators. Diana Ross recorded the song for her debut film, the Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues (1972), and it was included on the chart topping soundtrack album. Tel: 212-691-2555. It’s December 1953. ‘Strange Fruit’ has often been described as a dirge-like ballad. This material has been combed over in countless books and articles. [23] Journalist Lara Pellegrinelli wrote that Jeff Buckley while singing it "seems to meditate on the meaning of humanity the way Walt Whitman did, considering all of its glorious and horrifying possibilities". They remained friendly with Party members throughout his childhood. Over the centuries, humans have survived tragedy through the incredible stoicism of not moving, of standing one’s ground, of resisting, of engaging in tremendous creativity. It was an attack on the perpetrators of lynching.”. Ecosystem Destruction Fueled the Pandemic. We can see the current left movement’s need for such works in the wildly successful career of a writer like Sorkin. It is this part of the story, the part about the left showing deep care for their own, that I might seize on for my imaginary prestige TV show. The poem was meant to be a critique of the real-life lynching of two African-American men by a mob of white people who were never trialed or convicted for their acts as a group. "Strange Fruit," written by Jewish schoolteacher Abel Meeropol in 1937, takes a harrowing and unflinching look at American racism. As lefty public school teachers, the Meeropols were both heavily involved in the New York City Teachers Union. I first learned the Meeropols’ story in 2018 when, as a member of Sing in Solidarity, I was taught to sing “Beloved Comrade” for a memorial to Heather Heyer—the young woman murdered in the Charlottesville terror attack in 2017. I actually wouldn’t approach the trial or the appeals much at all. “At that point, right-wing groups tried to have us taken from Abel and Anne, and a court custody battle developed,” Robert Meeropol told me. Later, his song was popularized by Billie Holiday and became well-known for confronting racism in America head-on. “Between Capitalism and Community” by Michael A. Lebowitz, Counterfire reviews “The Dawning of the Apocalypse” by Gerald Horne, Marx & Philosophy on Gerald Horne’s “Jazz and Justice”, Left Voice reviews Rob Wallace’s “Dead Epidemiologists” + This Is Hell interviews Rob Wallace, Time Talks–so does Gerald Horne: about “The Dawning of the Apocalypse”, Upper Ocean Temperatures Set a New High Record in 2020, Record number of billion-dollar disasters struck U.S. in 2020. “Abel was no turn-the-other-cheek liberal,” said Robert Meeropol. With Dorothy Thigpen, Milton Gabler, Farah Jasmine Griffin, C.T. As the tumultuous present unearths the radical past, Hollywood keeps putting out films that capitalize on public interest while propping up existing power structures. They are waiting patiently for the orphaned sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to arrive. [14] Because of the power of the song, Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it; the waiters would stop all service in advance; the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday's face; and there would be no encore. Meeropol wrote the anti-lynching poem, "Strange Fruit", which was originally published in the Marxist publication The New Massesand was subsequently set to music. Anne Meeropol sang and played it on her nylon string guitar at Teachers’ … Considering the vivid images and sustained metaphor of the song “Strange Fruit,” it shouldn’t be surprising that it began as a poem. It protests the lynching of Black Americans, with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. While Hollywood isn’t going to tell the real story of the Meeropols anytime soon, if I were to make that TV series, I would open it on a party scene in the front parlor of a Brooklyn brownstone. The writers David Margolick and Hilton Als dismissed that claim in their work Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song, writing that hers was "an account that may set a record for most misinformation per column inch". On the recording, Holiday starts singing after 70 seconds. The song consists of 12 lines comparing a southern idyll (“Pastoral scene of the gallant South”) with a brutal lynching (“The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth”). Courtesy of Robert and Michael Meeropol One of Billie Holiday's most iconic songs is "Strange Fruit," a haunting protest against the inhumanity of racism. Meeropol was a member of the American Communist Party, but would later quit. My feeling of belonging came part and parcel with a feeling of exclusivity. It first appeared as a poem, “Bitter Fruit,” in the New York Teacher, a publication for the New York City Teachers Union. In 1940 Meeropol, a socialist, was called to testify before a committee investigating communism and asked whether the US Communist Party had paid him to write Strange Fruit. Abel had written “Strange Fruit” when the left was rallying in support of an anti-lynching bill in the Senate. Transcript: James Baldwin’s ‘Little Houses’ and Abel Meeropol’s ‘Strange Fruit’ Paul Gilroy: My name is Paul Gilroy, I'm the Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the study of Racism and Racialisation at University College London. Under constant threat of persecution, the New York City left was necessarily close knit. [4] It was also included in the "Songs of the Century" list of the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Abel Meeropol watches as his sons, Robert and Michael, play with a train set. Many people know that the man who wrote the song was inspired by a photograph of a lynching. For 30 years he has been a progressive activist, author and speaker. [20] Holiday's 1939 version of the song was included in the National Recording Registry on January 27, 2003. Abel Meeropol (February 14, 1903 – October 29, 1986) was an American songwriter and poet whose works were published under his pseudonym, Lewis Allan. [27] Nina Simone recorded the song in 1965,[28] a recording described by journalist David Margolick in the New York Times as featuring a "plain and unsentimental voice". The photograph helped inspire the poem and song "Strange Fruit" written by Abel Meeropol -- and performed around the world by Billie Holiday. According to Robert Meeropol, Abel had a visceral “anger over injustice and a willingness to act upon that.” Alongside these deep feelings also appears to have been a uniquely attuned moral clarity. He wrote songs for left-wing reviews that were supported by or in the orbit of the Party. Robert and Michael were raised in a loving, quirky, left-wing home. [23] LA Times noted that Siouxsie and the Banshees's version contained "a solemn string section behind the vocals" and "a bridge of New Orleans funeral-march jazz" which enhanced the singer's "evocative interpretation". I’d stroll around that material, which I believe has been over examined and lost much of its humanity. During their parents’ imprisonment, the boys lived with their grandparents, spent a brief period in an orphanage, and finally were sent out of New York City to the home of family friends in Toms River, New Jersey. In our current moment of widespread helplessness, when narrativizing our past would be a therapeutic and politically expedient practice, left-wing history is instead being rewritten by liberals like Aaron Sorkin. Abel Meeropol (February 10, 1903 – October 29, 1986) was an American songwriter and poet whose works were published under his pseudonym, Lewis Allan. 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