Strange Fruit and Civil Rights

Throughout American history, African-Americans have had to fight for equal rights. As people fought for change, they used music to spread the word, helping build strength and support for the cause. James Brown’s, “Say It Loud-I’m Black and I’m Proud”, is a message about the prejudice that black men and women had to endure in America and preaches the need for African-Americans to take pride in themselves in order to gain a sense of empowerment. Sam Cooke’s, “A Change is Gonna Come”, speaks volumes about the treatment of African-Americans and gives a message of hope. But decades before Cooke, Brown, and countless other musicians of the fifties and sixties began expressing the hardships and tribulations of African-Americans, the road needed to be paved and Billie Holiday’s haunting jazz ballad, “Strange Fruit”, did just that.

African-Americans have struggled for hundreds of years for equality. Looking at a timeline, one would see huge strides in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s, coincidentally, protest music was everywhere, thanks to the fairly recent invention of the television. By then, televisions were becoming commonplace in American homes and shows like American Bandstand and the Ed Sullivan Show were pushing the envelope by airing more music by black artists. Society was now being exposed to the reality that African-Americans were not being treated equally and music found its way into the homes of future supporters. This did not happen overnight though. Before television, radio, albums, and concerts were how individuals found music, which slowed the spread of new music across a young America, with the memories of the civil war still fresh in many white Americans.

Before the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, the 1930’s had not seen much progress by way of civil rights for African-Americans. Despite the steps taken by Congress to give equal rights to blacks; the abolishment of slavery in 1865 and the right to vote in 1870 (Rodriguez, 2007,...