The crowd, expecting Holiday's song to be about love or dancing in the moonlight, instead were stunned for awhile after Holiday sings the last line "Here is a strange and bitter crop". In her autobiography, Holiday commented, "There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began clapping nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping."
Obviously, the crowd's initial reaction was not surprising given that lynching was considered a sport during the 1930s. Although picnic is based off of the French word, pique-nique, blacks were still persecuted in a picnic-like setting which made many people today associate lynching with the word picnic. Still, the timing of the song was in a period where lynching was considered moderately acceptable. However, the timing was perfect because famous incidents such as the Emmet Till case or the Scottsboro Boys case occurred around the same time which ultimately led to the Civil Rights movement.
The fact that the crowd began clapping shows that some people had felt lynching was wrong but were too afraid to speak up about it. I believe that with them hearing that song, they finally realized they needed to do something about it. As I've stated before, the timing for the song to be created and song couldn't have been better.
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