1944, USA : The woman writer LILLIAN EUGENIA SMITH (1897 - 1966). Was a writer and social critic of the Southern United States, known best for her best-selling novel STRANGE FRUIT (1944). A white woman who openly embraced controversial positions on matters of race and gender equality, she was a southern liberal unafraid to criticize segregation and work toward the dismantling of Jim Crow laws, at a time when such actions almost guaranteed social ostracism.