Strange Fruit & the Execution of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg - 28:54

Strange Fruit: Extra-Legal & Legal Lynching on the 62nd Anniversary of the Execution of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg
with
.  Robert Meeropol, son of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg 
.  Soffiyah Elijah, Ex. Dir. of the Correctional Association

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for crimes neither of them committed 62 years ago and the impact of the government’s conduct in the Rosenberg trial still affects us today.  Virtually all the criticism of the lack of respect for defendant’s rights in our present conduct of loyalty and national security trials can be traced to the forced absence of the Constitution at the 1951 trial.  Continued research into the Rosenberg trial and dissemination of the documented perjuries and prosecutorial and judicial deceptions contributes to today’s efforts to reintroduce Constitutional trials into every courtroom, regardless of the politics or religion or color of the defendants.  That is why on what is now the centennial of Ethel Rosenberg’s birth date that Building Bridges continues to raise these issues and believe that we must win an official review of the Rosenbergs’ case and subsequently their exoneration.  Although nothing can change the finality of the death penalty, an acknowledgment of government wrongdoing in this historic cause would be a first step in halting the perversions of due process and human rights that continue to undermine the legal system and this country’s proclamation of democracy. Robbie Rosenberg begins his presentation by discussing the song Strange Fruit, which is about the writing of the anti-lynching song written by his adopted parent Abel Meeropool, after the execution of his parents, writing under the name Lewis Allen and its popularization by the great singer Billie Holiday, who along with Ethel Rosenberg was born 100 years earlier.  Robbie draws some creative and fascinating parallels between his birth mother and the life and death of Billie Holiday.  

Play stream
Download