Erratum

In David Fasenfest’s Review Essay, the lyrics to ‘Strange Fruit’ were incorrectly attributed to Damon Frost and Aaron Phiri as the authors and composers. The actual author and composer of this song was the teacher, poet and social activist Abel Meeropol, who wrote a poem about the horrors of racial violence after seeing a photograph of a lynching. This poem was then printed in a teachers’ union newspaper.

Abel Meeropol later set his words to music, which was then picked up and performed by Billie Holiday. The name of Billie Holiday is also misspelt in the article as ‘Billy Holiday’.

Meeropol went on to adopt the two sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their parents were executed.

The author of the article, David Fasenfest, would like to apologize for these errors.