Abel Meeropol (February 10, 1903 - October 30, 1986) was an American writer and inadvertent song-writer, best known under his pseudonym Lewis Allan and as the adoptive father of the young sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Meeropol wrote the anti-lynching poem, "Strange Fruit", which he subsequently set to music. The song was performed by Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday (or rather her ghostwriter) claimed, in Lady Sings the Blues, that she cowrot...
more
Abel Meeropol (February 10, 1903 - October 30, 1986) was an American writer and inadvertent song-writer, best known under his pseudonym Lewis Allan and as the adoptive father of the young sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Meeropol wrote the anti-lynching poem, "Strange Fruit", which he subsequently set to music. The song was performed by Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday (or rather her ghostwriter) claimed, in Lady Sings the Blues, that she cowrote the music to the song with Meeropol and Sonny White, but in fact, Meeropol was the sole writer of both lyrics and melody to this haunting plea for civil rights.
Meeropol was the writer of countless poems and songs, including the Frank Sinatra hit The House I Live In and the libretto of Robert Kurka's opera "The Good Soldier Schweik". He taught at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, and on the side was an ardent, but closet, Communist. Meeropol chose to write as Lewis Allan in memory of the names of his two stillborn children.
Later, he...
less
