Black History Month Music: Billie Holiday
By Four Walls
@FourWalls (82874)
United States
February 14, 2026 11:06am CST
Happy day-before-half-price-chocolate day! 
Ask a single person, we’ll tell you what today is REALLY about. 
Let’s keep celebrating Black History Month with another one of the greats, a pioneer in music and civil rights.
Billie Holiday
Lady Day. when I did that “banned songs” list a couple of years ago the teaser song was Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a song from 1939. The song, about lynchings in the south by the Klan, was so controversial that Holiday’s record label forbade her from recording it and her record producer refused to participate (so she went to an independent label to have it recorded and released).
There are claims that the federal government wasn’t too happy with that song, either. Holiday developed a rather nasty heroin habit, and she seemed to be “targeted” for harassment and arrest. In 1947, her own lawyer failed to show to her trial for narcotics possession, causing the prosecuting attorney to plead for leniency in her case.
Oh, it gets worse. In 1959, the woman was lying in a hospital bed in New York City, dying from cirrhosis caused by her supplementing her drug use with alcohol. The feds came into her hospital room, arrested her for drug possession, and handcuffed her to her hospital bed. She died two days later. (So for you kids who are appalled by modern government actions and are wondering why us old folks aren’t wringing our hands…we’ve seen it before.) Like Marvin Gaye, earlier in the countdown, Lady Day was only 44 when she died.
Diana Ross (not featured this month, believe it or not) played Holiday in the film Lady Sings the Blues, for which she was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. These days, we know Lady Day’s greatness. I just wish it could have been recognized in time to have saved her life.
Billie Holiday
Born Elanora Fagan, April 7, 1915, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died July 17, 1959, New York City (cirrhosis) (age 44)
HALLS OF FAME: Rock and Roll, 2000; DownBeat Jazz, 1961; National Rhythm & Blues, 2017
Goosebumps time: Billie singing “God Bless the Child”:
Ask a single person, we’ll tell you what today is REALLY about. Let’s keep celebrating Black History Month with another one of the greats, a pioneer in music and civil rights.
Billie Holiday
Lady Day. when I did that “banned songs” list a couple of years ago the teaser song was Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a song from 1939. The song, about lynchings in the south by the Klan, was so controversial that Holiday’s record label forbade her from recording it and her record producer refused to participate (so she went to an independent label to have it recorded and released).
There are claims that the federal government wasn’t too happy with that song, either. Holiday developed a rather nasty heroin habit, and she seemed to be “targeted” for harassment and arrest. In 1947, her own lawyer failed to show to her trial for narcotics possession, causing the prosecuting attorney to plead for leniency in her case.
Oh, it gets worse. In 1959, the woman was lying in a hospital bed in New York City, dying from cirrhosis caused by her supplementing her drug use with alcohol. The feds came into her hospital room, arrested her for drug possession, and handcuffed her to her hospital bed. She died two days later. (So for you kids who are appalled by modern government actions and are wondering why us old folks aren’t wringing our hands…we’ve seen it before.) Like Marvin Gaye, earlier in the countdown, Lady Day was only 44 when she died.
Diana Ross (not featured this month, believe it or not) played Holiday in the film Lady Sings the Blues, for which she was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. These days, we know Lady Day’s greatness. I just wish it could have been recognized in time to have saved her life.
Billie Holiday
Born Elanora Fagan, April 7, 1915, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died July 17, 1959, New York City (cirrhosis) (age 44)
HALLS OF FAME: Rock and Roll, 2000; DownBeat Jazz, 1961; National Rhythm & Blues, 2017
Goosebumps time: Billie singing “God Bless the Child”:Your browser isn’t supported anymore. Update it to get the best YouTube experience and our latest features. Learn moreRemind me later
10 people like this
9 responses
@rebelann (115933)
• El Paso, Texas
2h
I seems that the worst atrosities happened yesteryear, I only pray that's true.
@DaddyEvil (167908)
• United States
4h
Pretty told me yesterday that I'd better be able to see tomorrow so we can go to Walmart and buy half-priced candy. (I'll be able to see well enough to do that, I'm sure. 
)
(I'll be able to see well enough to do that, I'm sure. )
@misunderstood_zombie (8455)
• United States
57m
She was so talented and lovely. It's sad about the heroin.
