We get introduced to the blues this FRIDAY to prepare for The Treasure of Lemon Brown next week.

Here are some bits the kids will be exposed to:

Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday

Song Facts provided by http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=543

This was written by a white, Jewish schoolteacher and union activist from New York City named Abel Meeropol, who was outraged after seeing a photograph of a horrific lynching in a civil-rights magazine. The photo was a shot of 2 black men hanging from a tree after they had been lynched in Marion, Indiana on August 7, 1930. The 2 men are the “Strange Fruit.”

In 1971, Meeropol said, “I wrote Strange Fruit because I hate lynching, I hate injustice, and I hate the people who perpetuate it.” Victims of lynchings were people who were marginalized from society, and most were black men. They were lynched for a variety of reasons, often because they did something to upset a prominent member of the community, who would then organize a mob to track down and kill the victim. Many times, the victims broke no laws but were lynched out of jealousy, hatred or religious difference. In America, lynchings were more common in the South, but could happen anywhere.

At this link – http://www.songfacts.com/songimage.php?id=543 – you can see the photo that inspired Meerpol to write the song originally titled Bitter Fruit.

 

Time is on My Side by The Rolling Stones

The Spider and the Fly by The Rolling Stones

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