Jim Crow segregated hostel rooms

Ceiling fans bear a strange fruit,

Blood on books and blood on papers,

A black body swinging in mute silence,

Strange fruit hanging from tridents.

(Note: These lines are inspired by the classic 1937 poem against American racism, titled “Strange Fruit,” penned by a Jewish communist called Abel Meeropol and most famously performed by Billie Holiday in 1939. Its first studio version was named by Time magazine, in 1999, as the “song of the century.”