Strange Fruit Planted in High School Classrooms

Some time ago Tracy Holder, Producer of the documentary Joe Papp in Five Acts, handed me a copy of Strange Fruit a documentary of that song made famous by Billie Holiday. With apologies to the producer, Joel Katz—who I never actually met—I must admit that I didn’t look at the film until recently. Even after touring the exhibit Without Sanctuary at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta after the NCTE Annual convention a few years back, the film remained on my bookshelf. Without Sanctuary exhibited photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs of African American lynchings. The weight of historic pathologies come down hard and heavy at the exhibit and readers of this post should beware that this grotesque pathology is equally graphic on the web site link noted above. But it is a necessary exercise in visual literacy.

I took a look at the film for the first time with some of my teacher education students last spring and then again this past Saturday with another group of students. While the film does not avoid the horror of history, the narrative of the song is the focus as opposed to lynching specifically. English teachers should note that the song “Strange Fruit” was written by Abel Meeropol, a high school English Teacher who taught in the Bronx while writing a number of songs, plays and film scripts.

This is however more than an inspiration to the range of influence possible from our profession. It is also a story of interracial education and activism. The film recounts not only that this teacher, a Jewish-American, wrote the song, but also that he and his wife later adopted the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their execution. Further, the adoption was facilitated by none other then W. E. B. DuBois, author of the American Literature Classic The Souls of Black Folk, available in full text online at the Electronic Text center, of the University of Virginia Library.

My students loved this film and they plan on incorporating it into their curriculum. Hats off to the producers and thanks Tracy for putting the film in my hands. The film ends at the same high school where Meeropol taught, as an English teacher explores the lyrics of the song with his multiracial classroom. The class explores literary devices such as metaphor, tone, and allusion. They also explore history and contemporary events. This is educational media at its best. While it is among other things an exploration of literary history born in the classroom, it returns to the classroom to look at curriculum and instruction. This blending of education, electronic media, art and literature was broadcast on PBS but it is available through California Newsreel.