Billie Holiday: Negatively Affected By Strange Fruit

Billie Holiday was a famous Harlem Renaissance jazz and blues singer. Her voice took on the emotion of the song, which was a quality not many singers had. Those strong emotions might have come from her cruel and misfortunate past. Holiday recorded many songs, but there was one song that made a huge impact. That song was Strange Fruit, a poem by Abel Meeropol that was set to music. The title came from the analogy that compared the lynched bodies of two men to fruit that hung on trees. Though Holiday was negatively affected by the song, Strange Fruit mostly impacted people’s lives positively. Even today, people are still being affected by Strange Fruit. Billie Holiday’s performances of Strange Fruit sparked a revolution that would later result

in the elimination of racism and the Jim Crow laws.
Billie Holiday was born on April 7th, 1915 in Baltimore Maryland with the name Elenora Fagan (Kliment). She was born into a poor family, but they were able to manage until Holiday’s father, Clarence Holiday, became a professional jazz musician and started touring in jazz bands. Holiday didn’t see her father much and, eventually, Holiday’s parents got divorced. With the father gone, Holiday’s mother, Sadie Fagan, had to move north to New York and Philadelphia, where she could earn more money. Holiday was left with her cousin Ida, who regularly abused her. Holiday faced many hardships in her childhood, including being raped, jailed for prostitution, and sent to a reform school for skipping class (The Biography Channel). This was all before her 15th birthday. By time she was 22, Holiday had moved to New York and recorded her first songs after John Hammond, a jazz producer, heard her on stage in 1932. By 1937, Holiday was at the peak of her career and had started recording for Columbia. She was nicknamed “Lady Day”. Holiday’s fame was short-lived, as the decline of her career started in 1942. She married James Monroe and, like in her childhood, she was abused. She became an addict, which plunged her deeper into depression. In 1947, Holiday spent most of her time in jail for carrying heroin and her cabaret license was evoked, meaning that she could no longer perform in clubs. Her addictions made her more famous for a short while, but she and her voice were deteriorating. Later, her entire career dissipated and she died of a chronic liver disease on July 17th, 1959.
Holiday found Strange Fruit by chance.

Holiday happened to perform at Cafe Society, where she first heard and performed the song, “Strange Fruit” (Josephson, Trilling-Josephson). Barney Josephson, the owner of Cafe Society, suggested “Strange Fruit” as one of Holiday’s performances after Abel Meeropol asked Josephson if one of Josephson’s performers could sing Meeropol’s song. After hearing Josephson’s suggestion, Holiday shrugged and told Josephson that she would sing whatever he wanted her to sing. The first time Holiday sang Strange Fruit, the audience was very reluctant about clapping (Kliment). They were obviously shocked. After a moment of awkwardness, the club burst into loud clapping and cheering. That moment of awkwardness seemed to disappear in her next performances of Strange Fruit. Every time Holiday would sing Strange Fruit, the owner would have it be as dramatic as possible (Josephson, Trilling-Josephson). Holiday would be the last performer of the night and Strange Fruit would be her last song. The whole club would go still, silent, and dark, with the light only illuminating Holiday to make her the absolute focus of the room. Josephson wanted to have the song drilled into his customer’s minds for the rest of their

lives.
Strange Fruit changed Holiday’s life.

Because of that single song, Holiday lived in comfort, although that comfort only lasted for a few years. Strange Fruit made Billie Holiday and Cafe Society famous (Josephson, Trilling-Josephson). Columnists and magazines wrote about her often, which boosted her popularity even more. Times magazine featured a photograph of Holiday in their music column. “With that picture of Billie, it seemed to me that Times magazine had broken down the color barrier.” Barney Josephson wrote in his book, “Cafe Society: The Wrong Place for the Right People”. “Photographs of black artists started to appear in all the fine publications. There was no longer a restriction. That’s what the song did in that regard.” (49) Though, Strange Fruit may have also been the cause of Holiday’s career coming to an end so quickly (Kliment). After all, Strange Fruit was a song that spoke of the elephant in the room, racism. The ideas of the brutality of racism were being spread through that song and that could have angered the federal government. Perhaps they tried to stop it from spreading. Perhaps the reason Holiday had been jailed so many times was because the federal government wanted to stop, or at least stall, the spread of those ideas. “I’ve made a lot of enemies, too,” Holiday said in 1947 to Down Beat, an American magazine. “Singing that [Strange Fruit] hasn’t helped me

any.”
Strange Fruit not only impacted Holiday’s life, but all black Americans. Even today, Strange Fruit is changing people’s lives. Q, a British magazine, named Strange Fruit as #6 of the top songs that changed the world (Margolick). Strange Fruit was the start of the end racial prejudice and the Jim Crow laws. When Holiday first sung the song, she was nervous because the song was anti-racist and, at the time, no one spoke out about racism much. Holiday performed Strange Fruit so much that it became popular and eventually sparked protests that would change life in America. Ahmet Ertegun, a record producer, said that Holiday’s performances of Strange Fruit was “a declaration of war… the beginning of a civil rights movement”.
Billie Holiday and her performances of Strange Fruit, though it may have upset many people, started the Civil Rights Movement and helped change America for the better. Holiday’s unfortunate childhood contributed to her career. As a singer, she found Strange Fruit and spread its ideas around Harlem. Its popularity grew and triggered a newfound resentment that had been buried deep within many people. The song seemed to make everyone realize how callous the Jim Crow laws were and, suddenly, they didn’t want to neglect these issues anymore. With its graphic lyrics and rather frank message about the unpalatable topic of racism, Strange Fruit was the start of a string of protests and boycotts that would soon alter life in America.