"Strange fruit"

samedi 30 octobre 2021
par agnesueur

"Strange Fruit"


Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin’ flesh

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop


The United States vs. Billie Holiday - Movie trailer


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Watch this video and identify (globally) the persons singing.
- Why are they singing ?
- What does it provoke ?

Historical background to the songs

- In 1619, the first slaves were brought from Africa to Virginia, in the South of the USA
- Between 1861 and 1865, the American Civil War took place, where the Northern States’ soldiers(nicknamed the Yankees) fought the Southern states’ (named The Confederates) to free slaves. The North won, and President Abraham Lincoln had the Emancipation Proclamation signed in 1863.
- In 1866, following the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan emerged to suppress and victimize newly freed slaves, and soutthern states voted laws to establish in society in which blacks and whites were "Separate but equal". This era is known as segregation.

The film 12 Years a Slave was adapted from a novel : Solomon Northup recounts the author’s life story as a free black man from the North who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the pre-Civil War South.