what is the strange fruit in the song
Strange Fruit "Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century, but continued there and in other regions of the United States.[2][3] According to the Tuskegee Institute, 1,953 Americans were murdered by lynching, about three quarters of them black.[4] The lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a treeâ€™s fruit with lynching victims.[5] Meeropol set it to music and, with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden.
How do you like them apples The phrase is thought to have originated in World War I, with the "Toffee Apple" trench mortar used by British troops. These mortars were later rendered obsolete by the Stokes mortar, which used a more modern bullet-shaped shell.