April 20, 1939: Billie Holiday Records "Strange Fruit"

April 20, 1939: Billie Holiday records "Strange Fruit," written by Abel Meeropol.

Meeropol had been shocked by Lawrence Beitler's 1930 photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith -- not in a Southern State, but in Marion, Indiana. He wrote a poem with the title "Bitter Fruit," and published it in the January 1937 issue of The New York Teacher, a magazine published by the New York City Teacher's Union.

He set the poem to music himself. He and his wife, Anne, first performed it in front of their friends, leading to it gaining some success in and around New York. The Meeropols and black singer Laura Duncan sang it together at a rally at Madison Square Garden.

Barney Josephson, the founder of Café Society, New York's 1st integrated nightclub, heard the song, and introduced it to Billie Holiday. Just 24 years old, and already regarded as the best female vocalist in jazz, she first sang the song at Café Society.

Because of the power of the song, Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it; the waiters would stop all service in advance; the room would be in darkness, except for a spotlight on Holiday's face; and there would be no encore. During the musical introduction to the song, Holiday stood with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.

Holiday's label, Columbia Records, feared reaction by record retailers in the South, and a refusal of CBS' Southern radio affiliates to play it. John Hammond, the Columbia producer who had discovered Holiday -- and other performers, ranging from Benny Goodman and Pete Seeger in the 1930s to Bob Dylan in the 1960s and Bruce Springsteen in the 1970s -- refused to produce it. So the producing duty was given to Milt Gabler -- comedian Billy Crystal's uncle, and later the producer of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock."

Gabler worked out a special arrangement with Vocalion Records to record the song, and Columbia gave Holiday a one-day release. Frankie Newton's 8-piece Café Society Band was used for the session. Because Gabler worried the song was too short, he asked pianist Sonny White to improvise an introduction. It lasts 1 minute and 10 seconds, before Holiday begins to sing.

Later in the year, New York Post writer Samuel Grafton wrote, "If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its 'Marseillaise.'" In 1999, Time magazine named it as "Best Song of the Century."

In 1945, Abel Meeropol wrote the anti-bigotry song "The House I Live In." It was recorded by Frank Sinatra, as part of what became perhaps the 1st "concept album."

Billie Holiday died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959. Milt Gabler lived until 2001. Anne Meeropol lived until 1973, Abel Meeropol until 1986. They had adopted the orphan sons of the executed spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Both sons are still alive, and retired from careers as college professors: Michael Meeropol, age 79, economics; Robert Meeropol, 75, anthropology. Each of the brothers has 2 children.

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April 20, 1939 was a Thursday. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NHL season ended 4 days earlier, when the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup, defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs in 5 games.

There were 5 games played in baseball that day, the Opening Day of a new season:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 2-0 at Yankee Stadium. Red Ruffing outpitched his fellow future Hall-of-Famer, Lefty Grove. It was the major league debut of future Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams, who went 1-for-4 for the Red Sox. I have a separate entry for this event.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 5-3 at Ebbets Field. Mel Ott hit a home run in defeat for the Giants.

* The Boston Bees beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-0 at National League Park in Boston. Lou Fette pitched a 3-hit shutout. This was the 4th of 5 seasons in which the Boston team of the NL used "Bees" instead of "Braves," and had Braves Field renamed. In 1941, they switched back.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 2-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. George Caster pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* And the Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-7 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Dixie Walker and Hank Greenberg hit home runs for the Tigers, Greenberg's being what would now be called a walkoff in the bottom of the 14th.

March 14, 1891: The New Orleans Lynchings

March 14, 1891: In a disgusting reminder that the already-famous city was a part of the American South, 11 Italian immigrants living in New Orleans are murdered by a mob, for their alleged role in the October 16, 1890 murder of police Chief David Hennessy, after some of them had been acquitted at trial.

Although they were shot, rather than "lynched," a term usually meaning hanging without sanction of the government, it was, and remains, considered the largest single "mass lynching" in American history.

Most of the lynching victims accused in the murder had been rounded up and charged due to their Italian ethnicity. Just as it would take until World War I for America to accept Irish-Americans as "white," so, too, would it take until World War II to accept Italian-Americans as such.

The lynching took place the day after the trial of 9 of the 19 men indicted in Hennessy's murder. Of these defendants, 6 were acquitted, and a mistrial was declared for the remaining 3, because the jury failed to agree on their verdicts.

There was a widespread belief in the city that Italian-American organized crime was responsible for the killing of the police chief, in a period of anti-Italian sentiment and rising crime. Italian-American voters were also known to prefer the scandal-plagued city political machine to the new Mayor, Joseph Shakspeare, a Reform Democrat, whose own role in inciting the violence that followed may well have been an attempt to misuse government power for the repression of his political opponents.

Believing the jury had been fixed by organized crime, a mob broke into the jail where the men were being held, and killed 11 of the prisoners, most by shooting. The mob outside the jail numbered in the thousands, and included some of the city's most prominent citizens.

The incident had serious national repercussions. The Italian consul in New Orleans, Pasquale Corte registered a protest, and left the city in May 1891 at his government's direction. The New York Times published a lengthy statement charging city politicians with responsibility for the lynching of the Italians. Italy cut off diplomatic relations with the United States, sparking rumors of war.

Increased anti-Italian sentiment led to calls for restrictions on immigration. The word "Mafia" entered the American lexicon, and this incident increased awareness of it, establishing it in the popular imagination of Americans.

I had long been under the impression that the word "Mafia" was an anagram, for "Morte alla Francia, Italia anela," is an Italian phrase that translates to "Death to France, Italy cries out." This turned out not to be true. It is now believed that it comes from mafiusu, a word in the Sicilian dialect of Italian, which roughly translated means "swagger," but can also be translated as "boldness" or "bravado." This is a bit ironic, since a big part of "the life" is keeping quiet, so as not to give yourself away, and bravado would tend to do that.

A former ironworker, Joseph Shakspeare (not "Shakespeare") was Mayor of New Orleans twice, from 1880 to 1882, and again from 1888 to 1892. He ran for a 3rd term in 1892, but lost. He died in 1896, only 58 years old, but apparently from natural causes.

The "lynchings" led to the establishment of Columbus Day as a holiday, to honor Italian-Americans. In 1892, for the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage, President Benjamin Harrison declared Columbus Day as a one-time national celebration. The proclamation was part of a wider effort after the lynching incident to placate Italian Americans and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy. In 1934, the holiday became permanent, on the 2nd Monday in October, in honor of Columbus sighting land in the Western Hemisphere on October 12, 1492.

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March 14, 1891 was a Saturday. There were no scores in North American sports on this day: Baseball was in Spring Training, football was out of season, hockey was all-amateur, and basketball wouldn't be invented for another 9 months.

But, being a Saturday, there was action in English soccer. Royal Arsenal, the original version of the North London team I would one day support, took the pitch at what was then their home field, the Invicta Ground in Plumstead, then part of Kent but now part of South-East London, and won, 5-1 over Old Harrovians, a team made up of graduates of the prestigious Harrow School of North-West London.