“Strange Fruit,” Ekphrasis, and the Lynching Scene

Abstract

This essay examines the way in which the song “Strange Fruit,” as performed by Billie Holiday, employs ekphrasis in order to make appeals condemning the practice of lynching. In developing the visual aspects of a lynching scene through ekphrasis, Holiday engages audiences in a way that encourages them to experience the lynching scene with all five senses. The sensory experience of the scene and Holiday's performance creates a strong condemnation of lynching and practices of racial violence.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to James F. Darsey, Peter Ehrenhaus, A. Susan Owen, and Alessandra Raengo for their invaluable insights and direction.

Notes

¹The author of “Strange Fruit” was born Abel Meeropol, but he used the name Lewis Allan as a pseudonym to publish his poetry and music. For the sake of continuity, I will use the name Lewis Allan throughout the essay in order to avoid confusion.

²In addition to the accounts of the song in the literature cited in the essay, I have also used a video recording of one of Holiday's performance of the song available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs) to help develop my argument.

³In addition to a special issue of Word & Image on ekphrasis (Word & Image 15, no. 1 (January 1999)), a special issue of Classical Philology (Classical Philology 102, no. 1 (January 2007)), and W.J.T. Mitchell's discussion of it in a chapter of Picture Theory, book length studies have been released. See: James A.W. Heffernan. Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashberry. Chicago: University of Chicago. (1993).; Ruth Webb. Ekphrasis, Imagination, and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice. VT: Ashbridge Publishing. (2009). Murray Krieger, Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. (1992).

⁴It is worth noting that ekphrasis, in particular notional ekphrasis, bears important similarities to the concept of presence. In The New Rhetoric, Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca discuss the importance of presence as a rhetorical strategy arguing, “By the very act of selecting certain elements and presenting them to the audience, their importance and pertinency to the discussion are implied” (116). Certainly, ekphrasis is a process of making things visually present in the mind of the listener. The potential relationship between these two concepts merits further attention.

⁵It is worth noting that White approved of and encouraged Holiday's performances of “Strange Fruit.” In fact, White hoped that other performers might follow suit and engage in more overt political support of anti-lynching efforts. White sent a letter to Holiday commending her performance that was published in the Courier (Margolick 75).

⁶Lynching as a means of social control is well documented and theorized. Ida B. Wells was one of the first to assert this in On Lynching (1892). Walter White furthered Wells's arguments in Rope & Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch (1929). Sociologist Arthur Raper provided an early study chronicling the practice entitled The Tragedy of Lynching (1933). Wilbur J. Cash detailed the social conditions in the South that made possible and promoted racial animus and lynching in the South in The Mind of the South (1941). In addition to this short survey of primary sources devoted to exposing lynching during the height of the practice, many of the sources discussed in the second section of the essay reveal the power of lynching as a form of social control.

⁷Pastoral beauty has long been a convention in landscape painting, and the term most often describes beauty found in agrarian and rural settings.

⁸David Margolick provides primary accounts of reactions from performances in Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song, In particular, Margolick covers the varied reactions on pages 53–83.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samuel Perry

Samuel Perry is Assistant Professor in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, Baylor University, #97350 One Bear Place, Waco, TX 76798, USA. E-mail: [email protected]