Abram Smith

Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp were lynched on August 7, 1930 in Marion, Indiana. They had been arrested the night before, charged with robbing and murdering a white factory worker and raping his girlfriend. A third person, 16 year old James Cameron, narrowly escaped lynching thanks to an unidentified participant who announced that he had nothing to do with the rape or murder. A studio photographer, Lawrence Beitler, took a photograph of the dead bodies hanging from a tree surrounded by a large crowd; thousands of copies of the photograph were sold.

In 1937 Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from New York, saw a copy of this photograph. Meeropol later said that the photograph "haunted me for days" and inspired the writing of the poem, Strange Fruit. It was published in the "New York Teacher" and later in the magazine "New Masses", in both cases under the pseudonym Lewis Allan. [Holiday's autobiography credits her with co-authoring the song, but [http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/film.html this PBS site] credits the music as well as the words to Meeropol.] This poem became the text for the song of the same name, performed and popularized by Billie Holiday. [According to the [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlynching.htm spartacus.schoolnet article] and [http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/film.html this PBS site] .] The song reached 16th place on the charts in July 1939.

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