“My daughter studied the KKK at school... she is not only worried about the government repression [for my organizing] but about the possibility of racist physical attacks against us as well.”

It’s been an ugly, painful week marked by multiple, high profile hate crimes around the country. Unfortunately, this is not an aberration but a continuation of assaults that have intensified since Trump’s election – the attacks on immigrants, activists, communities of color, women, journalists, faith groups, and folks who identify as LGBTQ.

On October 15, 2018, Rosenberg Fund for Children executive director Jenn Meeropol joined nonprofit foundation leaders, editorial boards, and

(guest blog by RFC Communications Director, Amber Black)

Two topics consistently engage our supporters more than any others: the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the song “Strange Fruit.” It’s been 65 years since the parents of our founder were executed, and 80 years since Abel Meeropol (the man who along with his wife Anne, adopted the Rosenbergs’ orphaned sons) wrote the anti-lynching anthem first as a poem and then set it to music.

But all these decades later, both the case and the song pop up virtually every day in a huge array of contexts including hard news and popular culture. So we’ve begun to spotlight them in a “Strange Fruit” and Rosenberg “Mention of the Day” on our social media.

Last fall the RFC was a sponsor of the first-ever Abel Meeropol Social Justice Writing Award presented by Straw Dog Writers Guild to poet Patricia Smith. The Guild was co-founded by my mother, Ellen Meeropol (a member of the RFC’s Advisory Board). My father, Robert Meeropol, spoke at the event about his adoptive father, Abel. The following essay was adapted from my dad’s speech. – Jenn Meeropol