TIL "Strange Fruit" is a song recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. It protests the lynching of Black Americans, with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. The song has been called "a declaration of war" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement".

As a white person, I've always loved this song, and it's an incredibly beautiful and sad metaphor. I can only imagine what it was like for black people back then to see such things happening, such deplorable images.

Then I saw Floyd being brutally murdered over the space of 9 minutes -- I actually saw the video within the hour it went public -- and I was filled with rage. I'm very much hard to make really mad. I saw the video and was seeing red and I thought, "Despicable, but nothing will come of it." Then somehow the people of my country fucking proved me wrong and my rage didn't go away and yet I was somehow happier with the state of the world than I'd been in quite a while. It was an amazing feeling.

/r/todayilearned Thread Link - en.wikipedia.org