SuitabookStrange fruit
Gary Golio
- Reading
- Consider reading together, pausing to talk about the historical injustice and the song’s response. The illustrations and back matter offer a way to revisit the subject at a considered pace.
- Themes
- Protest through music: Holiday performs “Strange Fruit”, a song about racial injustice, and the book presents the arts as capable of challenging racism. The book clearly frames the song as protest and gives its performance significance.
- Racial discrimination and lynching: The biography describes discriminatory restrictions imposed on Holiday and addresses lynching as the subject of the song. The book treats this strongly critically.
- Worth knowing
- Lynching and racial discrimination are central subjects.