The air was thick with tension.

Police lined the back of the auditorium, daring her to sing the first new.

Southern trees bury strange fruit, she sang, before all hell broke loose.

Here's the history behind Billy Howdy's most dangerous song.

This is two-minute black history, what you didn't learn in school.

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

The last line of Billy Howdy's strange fruit hung in the air as a hush fell over the once

jubilant audience, a thick silence lingered.

Why was the audience so shocked?

Strange fruit, a song about anti-black violence in America pierced audiences wherever holiday

sang.

No matter the reaction, she forced America to confront its original sin, lynching.

But the story of this infamous song doesn't begin with holiday.

But with a Jewish socialist named Abel Maripole.

Maripole, a teacher, wrote the poem after seeing a now iconic yet daunting photo of a lynching.

After publishing the poem in a teacher's union publication, he put it to music.

The song passed around to different singers before Billy Howdy jumped at the chance to sing

it.

Her passionate, powerful version left audiences speechless.

But her record label refused to allow it.

But Billy Howdy wasn't playing about her people, so she recorded it in any way.

The impact was immediate and strange fruit became Howdy's most influential work.

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