The crowd, expecting Holiday's song to be about love or dancing in the moonlight, instead were stunned for awhile after Holiday sings the last line "Here is a strange and bitter crop". In her autobiography, Holiday commented, "There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began clapping nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping."
Obviously, the crowd's initial reaction was not surprising given that lynching was considered a sport during the 1930s. Although picnic is based off of the French word, pique-nique, blacks were still persecuted in a picnic-like setting which made many people today associate lynching with the word picnic. Still, the timing of the song was in a period where lynching was considered moderately acceptable. However, the timing was perfect because famous incidents such as the Emmet Till case or the Scottsboro Boys case occurred around the same time which ultimately led to the Civil Rights movement.
The fact that the crowd began clapping shows that some people had felt lynching was wrong but were too afraid to speak up about it. I believe that with them hearing that song, they finally realized they needed to do something about it. As I've stated before, the timing for the song to be created and song couldn't have been better.
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I did not know about the first time Billie Holiday performed "Strange Fruit". I thought your comparison between the audiences reaction to the performance and the general opinion towards lynching quite insightful. To me it seems the nervous clapping and the hesitation represented the sentiments of most Americans in that they may have thought lynching to be wrong, but were not willing to stand up and fight against the injustice that was occurring against African-Americans in mid-century America. I also thought your use of pictures in this blog post to be very good, and as adding effect to the overall tone of the post.
ReplyDelete-Lina Bauer
Similarly to Lina, I was not aware that Billie Holiday's first performance of Strange Fruit received a hesitant reaction of applause. The fact that her audience was able to easily make the connection between the metaphor of Strange Fruit and lynching points to the obvious popularity of the heinous "sport." I personally imagined being in the audience. I too, probably would have reacted as if 'is this rally happening?' Is this woman really bringing into light the evils of something trapped within the darkness of American culture. Holiday took a risk that needed to occur in which she made lynching a topic that could no longer be ignored within America.
ReplyDelete-Ashley McNeill