Once Meeropol put the words to music, the song made its way around New York City. Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees” “Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, The eerie, mournful lyrics never call out lynching explicitly, but use a painful metaphor to describe the horrible terror that ravaged Black communities in the South. Meeropol was driven to write the lyrics after seeing a photo of two Black men who had been lynched in Indiana. Similar to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” “Strange Fruit” was originally written as a poem. The haunting song popularized by Billie Holiday was written in 1937 by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high school teacher and civil rights activist from the Bronx. ![]() The song, which is still commonly sung in Black churches, was performed at Tubman’s funeral in 1913. The “sweet chariot” represented the Underground Railroad, swinging low-to the South-to carry them to the North. The melody was a signal that the time to escape had arrived. Among Tubman’s favorites was reportedly “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” As abolitionist Harriet Tubman guided Black people to freedom along the Underground Railroad, she sang certain spirituals to signal it was time for escape. Some were also used as a form of coded communication to plan escape from slavery. Throughout the antebellum South, spirituals became a vital form of folksong among enslaved people. The group was rehearsing for the upcoming Chicagoland Music Festival where they would sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" at Soldier Field. ![]() Wesley Jones, choral director, leads 600 Black singers through a rehearsal in Chicago, August 1935.
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