Earlier this month marked Paul Robeson's 125th birthday. Robeson was a fierce civil rights and antifascist activist, musician and a supporter of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (he even participated in a rally to save the Rosenbergs in 1953).

According to The Progressive, even the words inscribed on his tombstone encapsulate his passion and resistance. They read, "The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative."

Happy birthday to a human rights legend.

Happy birthday to activist artist, feminist and civil rights icon Nina Simone, who would have turned 90 today.

In 1965 Simone recorded her own harrowing rendition of "Strange Fruit," the powerful anti-lynching song penned by Abel Meeropol and made famous by Billie Holiday.

Simone once called it "about the ugliest song I have ever heard. Ugly in the sense that it is violent and tears at the guts of what white people have done to my people in this country.'”

Today's #StrangeFruitMOTD comes from Genevieve Gaignard's solo exhibition, "Strange Fruit," for Los Angeles Vielmetter, "a collection of pieces which agitate against the historical and modern-day lynching of Black Americans." This mixed-medium collection includes "provocative pieces" which "[aim] to disrupt: to amplify alternative narratives of racial violence and white supremacy."