This was the third canvas I used for this painting. My first try was too graphic; the reality was too hard to bear and too painful to share. The second focused too heavily on the crowds leaving the “lynching picnic.” This one tells the story of the poem, “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday.

 

Southern trees bear strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

 

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

 

Here’s a fruit for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop

Here’s a strange and bitter crop.