How ‘Strange Fruit’ Killed Billie Holiday. Holiday, who throughout her career called public attention to the devastating impact of white supremacy, drew the notice of the Commissioner for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He ordered her to stop singing the song... (as reported in The Progressive https://progressive.org/dispatches/strange-fruit-caused-the-murder-of-billie-holiday-180220/) The song’s lyrics were shocking to members of Holiday’s mostly white audiences: 

Southern trees bear strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

The song's writer, Abel Meeropol, actually taught at a high school in the Bronx, New York, and churned out reams of topical songs, poems and plays under the alias Lewis Allan. He published a poem under the title Bitter Fruit in the union-run New York Teacher magazine in 1937. The later name change was inspired. "Bitter" is too baldly judgmental. "Strange", however, evokes a haunting sense of something out of joint, according to a Guardian profile (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/feb/16/protest-songs-billie-holiday-strange-fruit) 

Pop Quiz: What national politician—well known in this area—endorsed the union drive at Amazon? This week we were happily surprised when the workers received another solidarity message from a politician well known to our listeners. Can you guess who it was? 

Let’s read what was written and see how long we can keep mystery alive before you guess who it is. 

In the USA Today on Saturday, this well-known elected wrote: What our nation desperately needs is not more oligopolies like Amazon or hostile relationships; what we need is a more productive relationship between labor and management.

Sounds like Bernie Sanders, right? Nope. Keep guessing. I will provide another hint. 

The person further wrote: One of my earliest political memories was marching the picket line with my dad in a Culinary Workers Union strike when he worked as a hotel bartender, and the lesson I took from it — all workers deserve respect — has stuck with me all throughout my career. 

Could it be progressive rookie Congresswoman “Squad” member AOC?

You are getting colder. Give up? None other than our Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio. 

If you did not get that pop quiz correct, it is certainly understandable: 

Tell us more about Senator Marco Rubio’s labor record: 

The Intelligencer (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/marco-rubio-amazon-union-alabama-oped-woke-capital.html) reports: Over the course of his career, the Florida lawmaker has backed the AFL-CIO’s position in relevant Senate votes 8 percent of the time. For the average Senate Republican, that figure is 17 percent. Rubio is a co-sponsor of national “right-to-work” legislation (a policy that undermines organized labor by allowing workers who join a unionized workplace to enjoy the benefits of a collective-bargaining agreement without paying dues to the union that negotiated it, which has the effect of encouraging other workers to skirt their dues, which can then drain a union of the funds it needs to survive). Rubio opposes the $15 minimum wage, and supported all manner of anti-labor Cabinet nominees during the Trump administration. Just last night, he criticized Joe Biden for including a “bailout” of the pensions of millions of Teamsters, carpenters, builders, and other unionized trades in the newly signe