“Strange Fruit” is a poem written and published in 1937 by Abel Meeropol (pseudonym Lewis Allan) as a protest against American racism, particularly the lynching of African-Americans. It was inspired by Lawrence Beitler’s 1930 photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana.

Billy Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit” in 1939. In 1978 Holiday’s version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The continuum of racism in The United States, while still overt, is often denied as post racial, where according to Urban Dictionary, “post racial” is “a term used to describe a society or time period in which discussions around race and racism have been deemed no longer relevant to current social dynamics. Popularized after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States of America in 2009.”