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In 1939, Billie Holiday crooned the haunting anti-lynching song, “Strange Fruit,” in front of a New York City audience. In doing so, she soon became the United States’ public enemy, earning her first threat from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics!
And the government’s harassment of her wouldn’t end until the day she died.
The feds knew that she had struggled with heroin addiction, so the FBN commissioner Harry Anslinger “resolve[d] to destroy” Holiday. He even worked with her abusive husband to set her up!
But things didn’t quite go as planned.
The Black FBI agent Anslinger sent after Holiday fell in love with her. And even after they locked her for heroin possession in 1947, she continued to perform “Strange Fruit!”
Unfortunately, after being set up with drugs and criminalized instead of rehabilitated, Holiday relapsed into addiction. But the feds still didn’t let up.
Anslinger kept attacking Holiday until her last breath. During her sudden hospitalization for cirrhosis in 1959, he had her arrested in her hospital bed and cut off her methadone treatment.
To his satisfaction, she died.
Today, agencies like the FBI and CIA continue to attack creative leaders and activists who speak out against this country's violence. But Holiday refused to stop singing “Strange Fruit” and NEVER surrendered. In her spirit, we must continue the struggle, and never give up!