Billie Holiday vs The US Government - US History - Extra History

Jazz singer Billie Holiday vs the US Government?! Her song Strange Fruit written by Abel Meeropol about the treatment of African Americans in the community is what started the whole altercation. Especially when Harry Anslinger, the Head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics got involved, he set out to ensnare the Idol any way he could.

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♪ Outro Music: "Monopolies" by: Tiffany Roman

#ExtraHistory #BillieHoliday #History

[extrahistory]

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[Nostripe]

It’s always weird when you hear a person described as a “racist who freaks out other racists with how far they will take it”

[abledbody]

"Blacks don't deserve basic human rights and we should do terrible things to them!"
"Alright, here's a song outlining the terrible things you do to us."
"Wait, no, don't sing that! People who listen might get the impression we do terrible things to you! Stop it, or we'll do terrible things to you!"

The reasoning here is truly on another level.

[pedroportillo]

The one thing that truly angers me in life is knowing that the people that did ungodly things to others for standing up and doing the right thing will never be punished. Rest easy Billie Holiday.

[reillycurran]

The fact that they denied her treatment makes her death so much worse, they basically lynched her right there in the damned hospital!

[Tservator]

When the agents refused to give her the treatment I got unreasonably angry for a person I just learnt about...rest in peace Billie

[pedroportillo]

When they couldn’t silence her, they killed her. But she was never silenced. We still remember Billie Holiday today, tomorrow, and forever.

[veryirishdude]

I remember first hearing "Strange Fruit" in my high school US history class, really changed how I looked at media and music's cultural impact. RIP Lady Day, and props to Extra Credits for telling her story!

[LadyDeirdre]

Anslinger wasn't just an Omega-level racist, he was a homophobe, xenophobe, demagogue, puritan, prohibitionist, and all around terrible person. Evidence meant nothing to him. Facts meant nothing him. Obedience (to him) meant everything.

[maelysd.]

I discovered Billie Holiday through her songs broadcasted in Fallout 3; I'm sad and enraged to hear what happened to her, in the end just because she wanted to fight racism. She deserved immensely better.

[davididiart]

I first got to listen to strange fruit when I was in college, taking a class on historical art forms. Sent chills down my spine back then, and it still does. Billie Holiday was truly one of the Giants of all time.

[Omnywrench]

US Government: you can't sing that song

Billie Holiday: 🎵 *_How 'bout I do... anyway_* 🎵

[philtkaswahl]

If some kind of karma is any "comfort, " Harry J. Anslinger later witnessed his own wife die slowly and painfully from the complications of heart failure while he himself later died of angina a broken man, hopelessly addicted to the morphine prescribed for it.

[Dreagostini]

She was part of my english classes bridging from the civil war in the US to the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. We even worked her on her version of "Strange Fruits". Why I'm mentioning this? Because it's in the curriculum of Lower Saxony, Germany, in the senior high school equivalent. English classes here are mandatory btw.

[toyamwarr]

American death row inmates have access to free healthcare yet Billie Holiday, a jazz singer, was left to die chained to a hospital bed over a song. That’s a new special level of hate.

[MalikF]

When I saw how the agents refused to help her I got outraged over the lack of empathy😡

[theoutlook]

@7:22 -7:32 I'm glad you took the time to repeat that bit of information. That truly is a WTH moment.

[Nipplator]

The capacity of hatred in a person and the willingness to unleash it for a trivial excuse, that's what always destroys more and more of my soul each time it happens.

[boyankovachev]

As a heroin addict I want to say that the way she died and the reason why she was killed, because this was a murder, hurts in a way that very few things have been able to hurt me. Yes, okay she was an addict, but what she was made to went through is so awful. Especially getting killed because she did the right thing.
But the very worst things, imo, is not only that we haven't learned the fact that addicts are people and need help, not prison, treatment and not punishment. And the second one is that I'm sure that even today there are people who would do what those federal agents did, to people like her, because no matter how far we go, we are not close enough to living in a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and all those awful ways to hate someone who is just different from you. I hope so much that we will be able to get there one day, but I'm sad, cuz it won't be in my lifetime.
One love ❤️

[animefan]

If I remember correctly, Enslinger was the reason marijuana became illegal via racist attacks on Mexicans.