FFS Friday 8/21/26- Strange Fruit

Close your eyes and listen to the recording of Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday in the 1930s.

“Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves
and blood at the root
Blackbodies swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees”

Originally written by Abel Meeropol in 1937 and famously sung by Billie Holiday in 1939, an act that garnered her death threats, this song became a protest anthem.

No more killing black folk and hanging them in trees, was the overwhelming message.

This is what is known as lynching.

What they don’t want you to pay attention to is the marked increase in fake suicides by Black people all across the South.

This has been happening for more than a year.

The police departments are quick to proclaim them “suicides”. Sometimes as soon as the next day. This is a message and a proclamation that many of the families decry.

“Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh”

There have been 22 of these “suicides” from March to August.

Twenty-two.

I have read articles that claim the number is as many as 26. The exact number is hard to parse as no one article encompasses them all.

These deaths being proclaimed suicides without autopsies or investigation is a modern day travesty.

That no one wants us to pay attention to.

“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”

Alabama.

Mississippi.

Louisiana.

North Carolina.

New York.

Florida.

Georgia.

Michigan.

Michigan and New York are the outliers. The rest are deep Southern states.

If Billie Holiday crooning in your ear doesn’t convince you, please consider the manner of death. And that several Black people have said that they would never commit suicide by hanging.

Kinda makes you think what else is not being paid attention to because we are too distracted by the Iran war, grocery prices, ongoing shenanigans by the administration, gas prices, housing prices, food borne illnesses?

“Southern trees bear a strange fruit”

Billie Holiday sings the song like a dirge. And we should listen.

Put down your phones and listen.