Strange Fruit

NPR's Elizabeth Blair has the story of Abel Meeropol, a man with two extraordinary life stories. He wrote the song "Strange Fruit" about lynching that became one of the most important songs of the 20th century AND he and his wife adopted the two boys who were orphaned when their parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were executed in 1953. His civil rights beliefs as a teacher cost him much of his career, as he fell to the McCarthy Communist Witch Hunt.

"Strange Fruit" was popularized by Billy Holiday, never mentioning the lynching but strongly enditing a practice in the south of hanging negros. The song is in the National Historic Registry and was named the "song of the century" by Time Magazine in 1999.

To llisten to the story on NPR, click here.