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Please Dont Talk About Me /
Strange Fruit /
The
Blues Are Brewin' /
What A Little Moonlight Can Do /
Fine and Mellow
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Billie Holiday
(born Eleanora Fagan Gough; April 7, 1915 – July 17,
1959) was the daughter of
Clarence Holiday. The account given in her autobiography, Lady
Sings the Blues, seems to be inaccurate. Her father
abandoned the family early and refused to acknowledge his
daughter until after her first success. At some point in her
childhood, her mother moved to New York, leaving her in the care
of her relatives who, according to Holiday, mistreated her. She
did menial work, had little schooling, and in 1928 went to New
York to join her mother.
According to her own story, she was
recruited for a brothel and was eventually jailed
briefly for prostitution. |
At some point after 1930, she began singing
at a small club in Brooklyn, and in a year or so moved to Pods'
and Jerry's, a Harlem club well known to jazz enthusiasts. In
1933, she was working in another Harlem club, Monette's, where she was
discovered by the producer and talent scout John
Hammond.
Hammond immediately arranged three recording
sessions for her with Benny
Goodman and found engagements for her in New York clubs.
In 1935, he began recording her regularly, usually under the
direction of Teddy Wilson with
studio bands that included many of the finest jazz musicians of
the day. These recordings, made between 1935 and 1942,
constitute a major body of jazz music; many include work by Lester
Young, with whom Holiday had particular empathy. Though
aimed mainly at the black jukebox audience, the recordings
caught the attention of musicians throughout America and soon
other singers were working in Holiday's light, rhythmic manner.
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While many people
assume that the song "Strange Fruit" was written by
Holiday herself, it actually began as a poem by Abel Meeropol, a
Jewish schoolteacher and union activist from the Bronx who later
set it to music. Disturbed by a photograph of a lynching, the
teacher wrote the stark verse and brooding melody under the
pseudonym Lewis Allan in the late 1930s. Meeropol and his wife
Anne are also notable because they adopted Robert and Michael
Rosenberg, the orphaned children of the executed communists
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
"Strange Fruit" was first performed at a New York
teachers' union meeting and was brought to the attention of the
manager of Cafe Society, a popular Greenwich Village nightclub,
who introduced Billie Holiday to the writer. Holiday's record
label refused to record the song but Holiday persisted and
recorded it on a specialty label instead. The song was quickly
adopted as the anthem for the anti-lynching movement. The
haunting lyrics and melody made it impossible for white
Americans and politicians to continue to ignore the Southern
campaign of racist terror. (According to the Center for
Constitutional Rights, between 1882 and1968, mobs lynched 4,743
persons in the United States, over 70 percent of them African
Americans.)
The story of composer Abel
Meeropol doesn't end with "Strange Fruit." Working in
Hollywood six years later, Meeropol penned his other well-known
composition, the patriotic, Oscar-winning paean to tolerance
"The House I Live In," which was performed by Frank
Sinatra in a film short in 1945 and has experienced a revival
since September 11, 2001. The film explores how two such
seemingly different political and still-resonant songs came to
be written by the same man.
The tale of "Strange Fruit" -- its genesis, impact and
continuing relevance -- is an amazingly complex one that weaves
together the lives of African Americans, immigrant Jews,
anticommunist government officials, civil rights leaders,
radical Leftist teachers and organizers, music publishers,
record company executives and jazz musicians. In many ways, the
story of the song and its writer and interpreters is as moving
and oddly haunting as the song itself. posted 28
November 2007
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Strange Fruit Anniversary of a Lynching
August 7, 1930
Eighty
years ago, two young African-American men, Thomas Shipp and Abram
Smith, were lynched in the town center of Marion, Indiana. . . .
Local photographer
Lawrence Beitler took what would become the most iconic photograph
of lynching in America. The photograph shows two bodies hanging from
a tree surrounded by a crowd of ordinary citizens, including women
and children. Thousands of copies were made and sold. The photograph
helped inspire the poem and song "Strange Fruit" written by Abel
Meeropol—and performed around the world by Billie Holiday.
But
there was a third person, 16-year-old
James Cameron, who narrowly survived the lynching
"After
15 or 20 minutes of having their pictures taken and everything, they
came back to get me. . . And I looked over to the faces of the
people as they were beating me along the way to the tree. I was
pleading for some kind of mercy, looking for a kind face. But I
could find none. . . . And that's when I prayed to God. I said,
'Lord have mercy, forgive me my sins.' I was ready to die."
NPR
NPR Transcript
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Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in
America
Edited by
James Allen
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Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday
By
Robert O’Meally
Narcotics, jail, sexual abuse, and prejudice
are often our first associations concerning
the life of the great jazz singer, but this
biography recalls only Holiday as artist.
O'Meally (English, Barnard Coll.) puts her
tragedy and talent into perspective, and
what emerges is a critique of a singer. The
book's first section is outstanding in this
regard, employing stories, quotes, and
interviews in describing Holiday's
technique. Holiday and William Dufty's Lady
Sings the Blues ( LJ 8/56) is a serious and
inspirational account; O'Meally's treatment
is also serious, but he offers psychological
analysis as well. Referring to the subtitle,
O'Meally writes, "Through her music . . .
she faced down a world full of trouble . . .
her songs were confrontations." No index or
footnotes are provided, but there is a large
selected bibliography. For large public
libraries and academic music collections—Ina
M. Wise, Chicago |
 |
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Demonstrator Eden Jequinto covers his face
during a demonstration after the sentencing
in Oakland, Calif., Friday, of former BART
police officer Johannes Mehserle. Mehserle
was convicted of involuntary manslaughter
for the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at a
BART station on Jan. 1, 2009. Los Angeles
Superior Court Judge Robert Perry sentenced
Mehserle to two years in prison.
Mehserle had been called to the Fruitvale
station of the BART system in the early
hours of New Years Day last year with four
other officers to look into reports of a
fight on a train. Mehserle tried to arrest
Grant but reported that Grant was not
cooperating. Grant was on his stomach when
Mehserle shot him in the back.
The
shooting was caught on video by another
BART passenger and quickly went viral on
Youtube.—CSMonitor
5 November 2010 |
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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updated 25 January
2009
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