Billie Holiday

By Sarah Dawson
Contributing Writer

The role of African feminists includes showing others that there is no such thing as a “universal woman” or “universal feminist”; the different experiences undergone by various women warrant different definitions of women and feminists. This is why black women rejected the Feminist Movement of the 1960s; it was mainly a white women’s fight.

Similarly, black Civil Rights groups focused more on gaining rights for black males than for all African-Americans.

Billie Holiday helped shape black and feminist consciousness as they defied the dominant culture. For the black feminist, her role is about more than recognizing and explaining what it is to be a woman. It is about the issues that black women face because they are black and because they are women, not because they are either/or.

Her songs expressed female self-possession and assertiveness, particularly in the realm of sexuality. She grew up in Baltimore in the 1920s and 30s and her voice nearly went unheard. While her singing is famous to this day, her story has been undermined, torn down, discredited, because of her underprivileged place.

Billie Holiday has been lauded along with Joni Mitchell, Judy Garland and Aretha Franklin as one of the greatest female artists of the 20th Century. The appeal of Holiday was her pained and pinched vocals; she did not have a pretty voice, and the biggest part of her appeal laid in the rough edges of her whiskey-sour pipes.

Holiday’s instrument was her voice, and she embraced the harmonic challenge of pop songs, as she lastingly imprinted her own and often ironic interpretation upon trite, white lyrics. Her art embodied a critical attitude toward social relations at a time when they seemed beyond the realm of change.

For decades, the blues have been described as everything but an historical antecedent for contemporary black feminism. In Billie Holiday’s lyrics, there were coded references to oppression and feminist struggle. Rejecting the cruel political opinions of discrimination, which labeled artists like her “fallen women,” they embraced sexual freedom.

Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” changed the politics of American popular culture, despite the fact that many radio stations refused to play this song. While Billie was not the first woman to sing the song on stage, she is the most famous one to do so. Holiday described this song as her personal protest against racism.

“Strange Fruit” originated as a poem that was later set to music. It was written by Abel Meerpool, a Jewish high school teacher from the Bronx, and is about the lynching of two black men. The powerful imagery still strikes a chord in today’s society, and I can only imagine how powerful the
statement must have been during Billie’s lifetime. And yet, nothing that I’ve read about Billie talks about the courage and the straight-out gumption that it must have taken for her to sing that song.

The fact is merely stated that she sang the song and this is what the song was about and then that’s it, end of story? Dismissed by many critics as sheer propaganda, “Strange Fruit” articulated the collective rage of black people towards the unceasing brutality of a racist society.
Holiday showed that she could do more than add emotion to the sweet lyrics of pop songs, singing out a brief and impassioned art of social and emotional value. With “Strange Fruit,” she boldly challenged the unspoken responsibility of millions of white fans to the continued murder of her people. Resisting racist ideology as embodied in lynching, Holiday issued an emotional wakeup call, and it resonated everywhere, despite the fact that many remained resistant to the song’s stark message.

A woman in a Los Angeles nightclub asked Holiday, “Why don’t you sing that sexy song you’re so famous for? You know, the one about the naked bodies swinging in the trees.” Wow……all I have to say is ….wow.

Billie Holiday was an amazing woman. She had an emotional breadth that set her apart from the singers of her time as it translated into her music and touched everyone who heard her. While this article doesn’t provide a lot of facts, I hope it provides a picture of the woman, and inspires you to do some research and decide for yourself who Billie Holiday was and what her contribution to society means.

While Billie was uneducated, leaving school after the fifth grade, she was not stupid. While she made some admittedly naive decisions, she was a courageous woman who experienced the darkest aspects of life and still found her voice.

For those poor souls who have never experienced incomparable jazz and blues singer
Billie Holiday, the emotion and humanity of her voice and the pure élan of her delivery
are her trademarks.

[Sarah Dawson is a mother, companion, and a woman. She enjoys music, predominantly Motown. She has a fascination with Feminism/Women Studies. And she has a voice. With it she would like to guide, inform, and help.]

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