Writing this on the tail end of a 10 day work stretch; suffice to say I am exhausted and ready for a couple days of relaxation. Going to try writing this more often– at least on a weekly basis– in order to include more of the details of daily life here. This summer is apt to be busy and full of excitement and I want to write this more so to look back on in the coming years and remember all the little things that made this opportunity so memorable.
As it stands, I am almost 11 months into my 15 month contract and now must ask myself the question just about everyone here ends up asking themselves: Do I extend? While not promised, especially after the raising of the federal minimum wage, extensions are a big deal here at Edelweiss. They give you the opportunity of staying in Europe for at least one more year (per extension) and momentarily delay the dilemma of deciding what will be the next step in one’s personal and professional career. I won’t lie; working here is no walk through the park. It usually comes down to poor management and understaffing in addition to the living situation in which we are all cramped like sardines in a can next to each other and never have a moment to ourselves. Finding oneself facing all these issues, it makes the question of extending much more difficult than an outsider might imagine. Yes, you get to live in Europe rent free, but when faced with the prospect of coming back to zero personal space, no work/life separation and a company that will just chew you and spit you out without the slightest hesitation, you begin to have second doubt about the whole thing.
I have been lucky to be working in the hotel kitchen though, admittedly. I have seen firsthand the management in each section of the hotel and the absolute havoc they wreak on their employees and the kitchen Chefs are without a doubt the two best managers here. While not perfect by any means, I can honestly say they are the two best managers I’ve worked for in any of my past jobs; I have learned a great deal of industry knowledge, getting time off is a breeze and they will usually step up to bat to fight for all of us when called upon– a habit which I personally have never seen before in a manager. This is all given you are a hard, dependable worker though, a fact which some employees in the kitchen seem to neglect and rail against when they are not given the opportunities or extensions they think they are owed. All said, I would not mind working for them for another year given the chance. I don’t feel as though I’ve seen Europe as much as I should and that is the whole reason I am here, is it not?
***
I would like to update on my life since writing that blog post in October, but to be honest, not much happened after that until late January. Salzburg was my last trip that I took for close to 4 months and it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I guess I needed time to recover. Winter was very pretty at first here in Garmisch. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, the most voluminous, beautiful snowflakes I had ever seen were falling steadily on the barren trees and ground and I felt as though I was witnessing a beauty that was entirely new to me being from Florida. But soon unfortunately, the beauty faded into grays and blacks and everyday was just another overcast, chilly forecast without even the luxury of snow. This dismal weather combined with some disagreeable events in my personal life made for a very unhappy, long, drunk winter. Things which I had long looked forward to like holidays in the snow and German Christmas markets were made impossible through stricter COVID laws and long hours at work. It all culminated with a 10 hour workday on Christmas and a couple losses in my personal life that inspired me to try to get out my funk and return to my roots, at least for a week, by heading back home. While this didn’t completely jumpstart me, it did clear away some of the fog in my life and was a much needed respite. Seeing old friends, soaking up the Florida sun and enjoying time with family gave me the energy I needed to finish the rest of the winter strong.
My next trip was Ljubljana in Slovenia. It was a city ( and country for that matter) which I had never even heard of before arriving here but it was a very unique and beautiful area. I would describe it as having the countryside and rolling hills/mountains of Italy and the grunginess of East Europe. Its graffiti was second only to Berlin in my opinion, it had some of the best food I’ve eaten, the nicest people, and best of all, one of the cheapest places I’ve visited. For whatever reason, one of their specialties is burgers and I think I might have had one of the best Swiss mushroom burgers of my life in a tiny alleyway restaurant for only 7 euros, a beer and fries included. Slovenia is well worth a visit as well as Eastern Europe in general. The architecture, the people and the overall vibe are something that I never anticipated to enjoy as much as I did. Someday soon I hope to get over to Poland as well.
26/6
Post-Ljubljana, I was headed to Nürnburg the next month. This was just a quick visit– not nearly enough time to absorb the intense, dark history of the city– as it was a replacement trip for another that fell through. The weather was dreary the entire time, a very fitting foil for the stops and sights we were seeing. Our first stop obviously had to be the Palace of Justice, otherwise known as the location for the Nuremburg Trials. From the very entrance into the courthouse (which still is an active judicial establishment), it is clear that this is not a place to be taken lightly. Absolute evil had stood in this building, evil that was responsible for the killing of countless millions and the disruption of billions of lives, and the museum is deathly quiet, echoing this exact sentiment. After sitting inside the courthouse, in the very location that Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess had sat, you are led into a series of rooms, detailing the beginnings of Nazism and how each defendant in the Nuremburg trials had contributed to the cause, how a special committee was formed to create the Nuremburg Charter and would subsequently allow the victorious countries to prosecute individuals of crimes against humanity, and how each of their verdicts would end. It was a very intense experience– and it wouldn’t end there. The next stop was Nazi rallying grounds and the Jew processing center, the latter being the most formidable building I could possibly imagine being nothing but a solid brick building lacking windows or even color. Thankfully, the Nazis were never able to completely finish their plans for an entire complex and were only able to halfway finish a stadium and a park for Nazi speeches. It was still surreal to stand in the same spot where Hitler once espoused hateful rhetoric that would ignite and feed the flames of discrimination in German occupied lands. Still, I recommend Nuremburg haha.
Post-Nuremburg, I found that I needed to work on myself a bit and put another hiatus on trips. I realized that I needed to return once and for all to the things in life which interested me and sparked a lust for life. I began writing music a bit again, nothing spectacular but enough to keep me entertained on the guitar and forget about everything else. I cut down greatly on my drinking which might have had the biggest impact; Germany has so many great qualities, especially if you are a beer drinker and so I might have found myself a bit too immersed in the culture. I began reaching out for new friends here again, a skill which I had pretty much neglected after the first couple of months. All of this coupled with longer days and more sunshine helped me overcome my reservations and set me on a much better path than the one I was presently going down. I am happy here now (again). I lost sight of myself for a few months, but I feel as though I am back to where I should be and hope to continue to stay like this for many months to come.
This has gone on long enough, so I will abridge my next few trips and try to touch back on them again whenever I get the chance. Following my trip hiatus, I began taking smaller trips. A weekend getaway to a spa in Innsbruck, a night in Berlin (still need to return, this was one of the coolest cities I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing.), and a three day stint in Salzburg soaking up the great food and The Sound of Music culture. Following was a 5 day trip to Barcelona in which I, in order: received sunburn so bad I turned purple, went to Primavera sound and got to see Tame Impala, Khruangbin, The Strokes and so many more incredible artists, and got my wallet stolen in on the beach in Barceloneta. But still, how often do you get to go to a music festival in Spain? I don’t regret a thing, I hope my pickpocket enjoyed the 5 American dollars and scuba diving license that he found in that wallet upon investigating later. It puts a smile on my face thinking about what he probably thought of that empty wallet.
Anyways, that’s probably it for now. I have too much to go into detail about, and it pains me I can’t include everything but with any luck, I’ll start writing this regularly so I can tell the little things that I experience day to day that make me laugh or cry. There have been so many incredible moments here and I feel myself a completely changed person as compared to this time just last year. I feel myself becoming more outgoing, less afraid of risk and more ready for change, something I have always been vastly resistant to. I hope I can continue with this way of life.
I am currently writing from Salzburg, Austria; taking advantage of one of the few quieter moments I’ve had in the past few weeks. Again, it seems a lot has happened in the period since I last posted one of these and it seems almost redundant to try to share all that has been going on. Neither of us want to read a blog that long and, quite frankly, probably uninteresting so I will try to divulge only that which has been noteworthy. At some point, I will start writing these more frequently just so I can touch on the cool minutiae that makes up daily life of living abroad but until then I will have to use broad strokes to discuss my life as of late.
Right after writing my last post, Catching up, I visited Amsterdam for a quick 4 day trip, then off to Madrid half a month later for a 5 day trip and, upon returning from that stint, decided on a whim to come to Salzburg for 3 days. It’s been quite a busy month and I have forgotten what home feels like; it has been my REI suitcase and I against the world. My bank account is having what some might consider a “cash-flow” problem, so this is likely my last trip for a while. But let me go over the trips in order, if only so I can remember what it is I actually did this month when I look back years from now.
Amsterdam. Amsterdam was everything you expect a city of that magnitude, prestige and culture to be. My friend and I arrived at 11am, unable to check into our hostel, the Flying Pig, for several more hours, so we decided to walk the city and get a feel for everything. We were staying right in the heart of the Red Light District for those of you who have visited, so you know there was plenty to do and see right off the bat. We ended up at a coffee shop almost immediately, as you do in Amsterdam, and got to experience a sensation that has been hitherto unavailable to those of us living on a military base. Upon leaving, we went to check out the rest of the district until it was time to check into our hostel where we remained until our canal boat cruise at 6. It’s at this point where I really was able to view the truly enormous scope of the city. It seemed we were on that boat for hours, skating under bridges and walkways through the narrow canals and marveling at the Baroque architecture that lined the city streets mile after mile. It was absolutely incredible and I can’t recommend a canal boat cruise enough to anyone thinking about visiting this city, whether its your first or 100th time.
The rest of my time in Amsterdam can be summed up fairly quickly: coffeeshop, walking, eating, bar-hopping. I know, I am a disgrace to the city because I didn’t see much of the actual history and culture — just the main touristy parts, but I really did fall in love with that whole place. The Anne Frank Haus is a must see and very eye-opening to stand in the cramped, brick rooms that her entire family and the Van Pels family had to share and survive in for 3 years together. It is still surreal to be in places where so much history has occurred; a feeling I very rarely got from America. I will definitely be returning to Amsterdam soon.
***
May 15
Oh hey, thought I hit send on that last one. Let me make a new post real quick because believe it or not, a lot has happened since I started writing that in October.
I’m not quite sure where to start this post. I’ve stopped and started so many times that it feels almost silly to try to jump ahead to this moment from when I last blogged. I am hoping to do this more regularly and keep it up to date so I may speak on more of the minutiae and interesting stories that happen day-to-day but this blog will most likely serve only as a summary of how things have been and my current situation now. Suffice to say, things in my life have progressed so radically and so swiftly that I almost don’t recognize myself.
I graduated UF in May, walked across the stage and then had 2 months to pack up my life completely and say goodbye to everyone I had known. I now live in Germany, working at an army installation that also serves as a ski lodge and vacation getaway for all U.S and Department of Defense military personnel. Don’t worry, I didn’t enlist (although my ex was almost swayed by the recruiter), I am just a contracted, limited tenure employee even though it does sound a lot cooler to say I am a contractor for the Department of Defense. All jokes aside, it is actually a really cool opportunity as the resort pays for your airfare out to Germany and back to the states when the contract is up. There is also free lodging on base, which is a double-edged sword in more way than one, but the ability to live without paying rent is ultimately unsurpassable. Lastly, Germany is right in the heart of Europe, meaning that travel could never be easier. Colmar, France is a 6 hour train ride away, Cinque Terre, Italy is a 5 hour car ride and Amsterdam an hour and a half by plane. I have never had so much access to so many destinations and it is ultimately the greatest perk of working here. I just need my bank account to catch up so I can keep the good times coming.
When I first arrived, I was placed in the laundry department of the hotel and, suffice to say, it was not the job for me. I have stories on stories that I can share about that place that I’ll be sprinkling in the rest of my blog posts until the day I die. From the first day I walked in, I couldn’t help but be struck by the dense, oppressive atmosphere permeating the entire basement room. It felt like I had walked into a mental institution; the walls, the machines, the entire aura completely lacked color or imagination. I wondered if maybe I had walked onto the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; even the cast of characters working down there were as crazy if not crazier than those in the movie. It was not dissimilar to prison as I was not allowed to switch out to a new department for at least 90 days and to leave permanently would mean paying a great deal of money to the hotel for the flight to and from Germany.
So I was stuck. I felt completely isolated. I missed my friends, my girlfriend, my parents and life back home. I also had a roommate who, to put it delicately, I did not enjoy living with. We both came in the same group of six people and were the only two guys so naturally we were placed together. Within the first few days I could tell we didn’t vibe together but I didn’t seriously consider switching rooms for another couple of weeks and figured if I stuck it out it might get better. The moment I realized the living situation was probably going to have to change was his “redecorating”. To give some context, each hotel room has two queen beds, two 6′ dressers, two desks (usually) and a TV. He was on the facing the TV and I was the bed close to the window and one day, I guess he decided he was tired of looking at me at night and decided to spread the beds apart and place the two large dressers right in the middle, parting the red sea and effectively isolating me on one side of the room. I couldn’t see the TV, I had to try to dodge the giant things in the dead of night when going to the bathroom, and I honestly couldn’t even hear when someone was knocking on the door. More drama ensued the next two nights after the redecoration and by then, the writing was on the wall. Three days after my version of the Berlin wall, I texted the Housing Manager and was out of the room the same day. I had my own room for 3 weeks, which were some of the best weeks hitherto. However, new people were soon going to be on their way and, rather than room with an unknown person and possibly repeat the process again, I moved in with a guy who I knew and liked already and it has been a much better experience.
So, with the roommate situation settled, I could turn my attention to getting out of laundry. Luckily, I had made some friends in high places who knew how unhappy I was in my current job. While we are technically supposed to wait 90 days to transfer out, I had made it very clear that I needed to leave. It happened to work out that many of the people I’ve gotten close to here are chefs and they all began putting in a good word for me to the executive chef. After a little more than a month, he approached me and told me he would be willing to take me in as a kitchen steward (pretty much just dishwasher), assuming my department head was okay with it. Long story short, she wasn’t. She was blindsided and claimed that I had to wait my 90 days before transferring out. So I resigned myself to my fate but secretly began looking for jobs back in the states as I didn’t feel my heart would be able to take another 2 months stuck in the soul-sucking basement. I figured it would be better to get a real job and pay the airfare back to the hotel than be completely unhappy. However, one day I was pleasantly surprised when my department head told me that new people were coming in a month, and if I could hold out for them, I would be able to transfer out when they replaced me.
Looking back, I truly believe this is the moment when things changed here for me. While I had been making friends and going on small trips, I still felt as though I didn’t belong. I was living in the past more than the present and not making the most of this opportunity. When I realized that maybe there was a brighter future ahead here at the hotel than back home, I began to truly live how I should have been all along. My attitude completely changed; I no longer harbored resentment toward the decisions that led me here and now live each day as fully as I can, knowing I’ll likely never experience this level of freedom again. While this has been good for me, it led to a hard goodbye to someone back home as well as distancing me from many of the people with whom I used to be close. Of course, this is never easy and I can’t expect to just travel and experience complete freedom without consequences because nothing is ever truly free; however, I don’t regret one bit of this journey so far. The dreams I used to have about the places I wanted to see don’t hold a candle to the true beauty of what I have seen. Life here has completely surpassed anything my imagination might ever have conjured up and it has not even been a full three months yet.
As it stands right now, I am in a very good place all things considered. Working in a professional kitchen has been an incredible experience and has me seriously considering whether I might want to stay in one the rest of my life as a chef. I have several trips planned for the next coming months, including Amsterdam in a week and Madrid at the end of the month to celebrate my birthday (assuming my bank account allows for it).
But, to say the least, the last two months have been a whirlwind. I don’t know if the person I was just 3 months ago would recognize who I am now as I do feel as though I’ve changed a great deal over time, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. To be a long-term traveler, I’ve realized you have to be willing to change to deal with the unexpected which I feel has greatly helped me mature as a person and be more inclined to try new things and go out my comfort zone. It doesn’t hurt that I’m surrounded by some great people who, more or less, share the same attitude as me which has been great at keeping me moving forward and always up to something. Life is very exciting to live right now.
This blog was mainly just to catch up on how the last couple of months have progressed. I regret putting this off for so long because I experienced so much in this time that it would be impossible to try to fit all of it into this blog so I figured I would do a quick summary and then go more in depth in the coming posts, if I actually manage to get them out. This will probably be a two parter, followed by a post about my latest trip to Cinque Terre, a place I still see in my dreams at night and made up some of the best moments in my life.
The Conflicting Image of Billie Holiday Created by the Media and Government
4/10/2021
Billie Holiday was already a controversial figure when she first performed “Strange Fruit” in 1939. She had played with Artie Shaw and became the first Black woman to work as a headliner for an all-white orchestra, she had been kicked out of Count Basie’s band for “romancing the band members and causing dissension”[1], although she claims in earlier interviews, “Basie didn’t fire me; I gave him my notice”[2], and she had worked as a prostitute at the age of 14 before being discovered by John Hammond. However, this was to be nothing compared to the backlash and attention she would receive for the release of her most well-known, notorious song. Holiday would be both credited and shamed for the performance of this song and two conflicting images of her would arise in American media due to the song’s potent anti-lynching themes and her refusal to stop singing it until her death.
Upon her first performances of the song in Café Society, a progressive, leftist club in downtown New York City, she became an instant leader of the anti-lynching campaigns that were reaching their peak in the 1930s and, consequently, a target for the government and various media outlets that did not share in her passion for the song and its message. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, led by Harry Anslinger, tried to smear her image and intimidate her from further performances of the song through a number of different methods, some of which being: constant harassment by federal agents, multiple arrests, and a revocation of her cabaret license, which barred her from singing in bars or nightclubs. And yet, these aggravations only increased her popularity, creating a mythos that would forever shroud the song and artist and further her reputation as the successor to Ida B. Wells.
Through the arm of the FBN, the government sought to discredit Holiday and her leadership position in an effort to continue to avoid demands for more stringent legislation following the filibusters and consequent defeats of the anti-lynching Costigan-Wagner Bill and Gavagan Bill in 1934 and 1937 respectively. Although the levels of lynching had been decreasing and fewer than 100 people were lynched in the 1930s[3] (only three lynchings were officially recorded in 1939), they were still a very prevalent and relentless subject for those within the NAACP and activists like Abel Meeropol. According to David Margolick, between 1889 and 1940, roughly 3,833 people were lynched, ninety percent of them were murdered in the South and four-fifths of them were Black.[4] Lynching was at its lowest point ever in American history, and yet, it was plain to see the indifference within the government towards the African American plight after two separate refusals to pass a bill that would regard lynching as a federal crime. It became clear that public opinion and public awareness must first be shifted before the government would take any meaningful steps.
Anti-lynching movements were nothing new to the NAACP. There had been previous leaders of the movement that became national figures such as Ida B. Wells and W.E.B Du Bois, who spoke out loud and often against lynching after witnessing lynchings firsthand or through photographs taken of the event. Allegedly, W. E. B. Du Bois would even unfurl a large banner outside across his office in New York with the inscription “Another Lynching Today” in order to draw more attention to the frequency of which these events happened.[5] In the years leading up to the creation of “Strange Fruit,” Du Bois and The Crisis, NAACP’s monthly magazine, were continuing to push strongly for federal anti-lynching laws and were the leading protest organization in the country.[6] However, while these events were undoubtedly effective and became the genesis for the civil rights movement as well as building on the anti-lynching movement, they still were not capturing the attention of most white Americans; a fact that greatly dispirited Du Bois, leading him to escape to Ghana in 1961 and write a letter to his friend Grace Goens before leaving, summarizing his qualms with the line, “I just cannot take any more of this country’s treatment…. I set no date for return…. Chin up, and fight on, but realize that American Negroes can’t win.”[7]
Therefore, it became necessary for the anti-lynching movement to find a way to force white Americans to confront the harsh realities they had been sidestepping for so long and do so in a manner which was too public to avoid. It is at this point that Holiday first hears “Strange Fruit” played for her by Abel Meeropol at Café Society.
The song was originally a poem written in the early 1930s by Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher and activist who operated under the pseudonym Lewis Allan when writing poetry in order to protect his identity when writing about incendiary topics. According to Holiday, the song’s origins were fairly simple, writing in her autobiography, “It was during my stint at Café Society that a song was born which became my personal protest— “Strange Fruit.” The germ of the song was in a poem written by Lewis Allen. I first met him at Café Society. When he showed me that poem, I dug it right off. It seemed to spell out all the things that had killed Pop.”[8] Admittedly, this is largely untrue by all accounts. While there are some conflicting stories from those who were present, there is concrete evidence that the song was not written there, and it was not written specifically for Holiday. Meeropol first published the poem, originally called Bitter Fruit, in January 1937 for the New York Teacher and his wife first performed the song on November 13, 1938 for the Theatre Arts Committee’s political cabaret. After which, Meeropol states in several interviews with Nancy Kovaleff Baker that he was invited to the Café Society sometime in 1939 by Robert Gordon and Barney Josephson.[9] This statement is contested from an interview conducted by David Margolick with Josephson who states that “Meeropol just showed up there.”[10]
In interviews, Josephson also states Holiday’s claim that she immediately was captivated was largely incorrect and that she “didn’t know what the hell the song meant,”[11] and he had to push her into singing the song. It was not until he saw her crying during a performance months later that he felt she finally understood the song’s meaning.[12] In response, Meeropol suggests that he didn’t think she felt comfortable with the song but knew what it meant, asking only for clarification on what the word “pastoral” meant.[13] In Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela David postulates that both men were wrong and it would have been impossible for Holiday not to understand the song’ meaning as she had already experienced a great deal of racial conflicts in her life, many had even been covered frequently and, sometimes, sympathetically by Northern newspapers like New York Amsterdam News.[14] David further states, “her stature as an artist and her ability to comprehend social issues were both disparaged and defined as results of plans conceived by savvy white men.”[15] Put simply, Davis argues that in Josephson and Gordon’s story, they present Holiday only as racially and intellectually inferior to them and it is their doing only that allowed Holiday to gain fame from the song. While no one is quite sure of the correct story, these conflicting reports on “Strange Fruit” already begin to emphasize the fact that “Strange Fruit” seemed innately discordant and would continue to divide the American people for decades to come.
The poem and song were not the first of their kind to protest lynching and racial inequality. “Black and Blue,” written by Andy Razaf and Fats Waller for the musical Hot Chocolates, was one such well known, albeit generic, tune written about race inequality. Lawrence Gellert, a leftist activist, collected and published over 200 songs from anonymous blues singers in the South for his volume Negro Songs of Protest; an effort which was applauded by many mainstream outlets and led Time magazine to congratulate Gellert for “collecting Negro songs that few white men have ever heard.”[16] The most powerful being Lead Belly’s Bourgeois Blues which was a searing indictment of segregation and Jim Crow laws that operated with impunity in the city of Washington D.C that he had faced while visiting for recording session in the Library of Congress. However, none of these songs were ever able to break into mainstream society as every writer but Lead Belly requested anonymity[17] and thus, were never able to make a difference in any meaningful way beyond propaganda. Most protest songs were never designed to go mainstream,[18] but rather stay within specific social circles, a fact which likely weighed heavily on Meeropol as he wrote “Bitter Fruit” and which likely prompted him to offer the song to Holiday. He designed it to be as blunt and explicit as possible and evoke the sentiment that many anti-lynchers had felt since the start of Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Holiday herself even states that the song “had a way of separating the straight people from the squares and cripples.”[19]
Before the first performance, Holiday and Josephson created a very specific atmosphere in Café Society. By dimming the lights, stopping all bar service and placing a lone spotlight on the singer when it came time to perform her final number, “Strange Fruit” became impossible to ignore and forced listeners to grapple with the visceral anti-lynching imagery of the lyrics. After her first performance, Holiday states in her autobiography, “There wasn’t even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping.”[20] She claims that after a while, the song caught on and people started to ask for it and go watch her just for that performance, making her the most demanded act at Café Society every night a week for the next two years. It was during these two years that Holiday would be subjected to criticism and condemnation from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics whose federal agents were often in attendance.
The only official recording of “Strange Fruit” was not performed by Columbia Records, the record Holiday was signed to at the time, but rather the small, independent label Commodore Records run by Milt Gabler. According to Gabler, Commodore would not let Holiday record the song as they felt it to be too controversial and that it would not sell.[21] Instead, he told Holiday to inform Columbia Records that he would record the song, even though he was only a small record label, as long as she performed one or two others as well. Columbia agreed and Holiday was able to record her collection of singles on April 20, 1939.
Upon its release, most mainstream media outlets either discreetly and fleetingly praised Holiday or were reluctant to comment on her—a trend that would follow in the next two decades, whereas her more unproblematic peers like Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith tended to enjoy more publicity and coverage.[22]Time magazine was one exception to this trend, noting immediately upon its release the song had “provided the NAACP a prime piece of musical propaganda” and mocking Holiday, calling her a “roly-poly young colored woman” who “does not care enough about her figure to watch her diet, but loves to sing”.[23] John Hammond, the esteemed music talent scout, had refused to record the song and labeled “Strange Fruit” as “artistically the worst thing that ever happened” to Holiday and she had begun taking herself too seriously as “a darling of the left-wing intellectuals”.[24]
Holiday did have a few outlets willing to praise her and her performance; the biggest public compliments being paid to the song were from columnist Samuel Grafton of the New York Post in 1939, who wrote in his weekly column I’d Rather Be Right, “This is about a phonograph record which has obsessed me for two days. It is called “Strange Fruit,” and it will, even after the tenth hearing, make you blink and hold onto your chair. Even now, as I think of it, the short hair on the back of my neck tightens and I want to hit somebody. And I think I know who”[25]
The song was reportedly banned from playing on any radio stations and while this may not have been officially true in every case, it certainly did not receive any respectable time on the radio waves. Many DJs were concerned about the political nature of the song as it had been famously dubbed “Anti-Lynching in Swingtime, on a Disc” by Variety.[26]Therefore, it was in the best interest of many radio stations avoid the song and Holiday altogether, even if it did become her biggest selling hit of all time. Milt Gabler recalls that with the song’s message, it effectively kept itself off the air and states “it [Strange Fruit] was a downer”.[27] One radio personality who did choose to play the song regularly was Holmes “Daddy-O” Daylie on Chicago’s WAIT radio station who recalls “I would play it when I felt like it, sometimes two or three times a month, because it gave a good message”[28]. Daylie states in the same interview that he was labeled a rabble-rouser for playing the song on the airwaves but continued to do so anyway and play it for friends who wanted to record it for their small, independent stations. The highly political implications of the song had already begun to tear Billie’s image in two as radio stations were conflicted as to whether to support her in her stance as an anti-lynching advocate or ignore her, leading some stations, like the BBC, to completely ban her from their airtime while others, like WAIT, forced the song upon its listeners in order to appeal to white, liberal listeners.[29]
The biggest public damnation of Holiday’s image would come from the government, under the auspices of Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics. Before Holiday’s performances in 1939, Anslinger had been the Commissioner of the FBN for nine years, in which time he had turned his department from a defeated and corrupted force to one of the most powerful and efficient agencies in America. He was a fervent racist, even for the time, and had begun to focus his attention on marijuana as he believed that it was used most by two minority groups, Mexican Americans and African Americans.[30] As he began to print more outlandish stories of the evils of marijuana, he was offered more space in William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers, which were leading the fight in the war on drugs, to print more of these violent, inaccurate anecdotes of drug users.[31] He focused his attention on the jazz music scene, sending undercover officers such as Jimmy Fletcher, to these nightclubs to obtain more proof that marijuana was bringing out the “primitive impulses that lurk in black people that are just waiting to emerge”[32] and justify a government intervention. While this approach did not work with most musicians, Anslinger received word from Fletcher, his only African American agent, that there was a singer at Café Society who was performing overtly political songs and was rumored to be hooked on heroin. Thus, Anslinger, at the height of his power and veneration in America and angry that he had not been able to successfully penetrate the jazz world, decided to punish Holiday for her outspoken and non-conformist views.
Holiday faced a great deal of bad luck that never seemed to strike the rest of the jazz community. Anslinger first attempted to force Fletcher to surprise Holiday in her hotel room and issue a warrant for the search of the premises. When this did not yield anything substantial, Anslinger found a witness in Louis McKay, Holiday’s former pimp and husband. Holiday had finally worked up the courage to cut him off so, in turn, McKay decided to talk to Anslinger and discuss her heroin habits. He reportedly vowed that “I got enough to finish her off” and wanted “Holiday’s ass in the gutter in the East River”[33], an accusation that rung decidedly true and led to the very public “United States of America versus Billie Holiday” trial in which Holiday was subjected to a “year and a day”[34] in the Federal Woman’s Reformatory in Alderson, West Virginia. Upon this verdict, Holiday’s reputation was permanently tarnished, with many of her former entertainers, such as Sarah Vaughan, turning their noses up at the singer. To further prevent Holiday from resuming her title as a leader in the civil rights movement, Anslinger had her Cabaret license revoked meaning she was legally barred from singing in clubs like Café Society which were best suited for her intimate performances of “Strange Fruit”.
However, Holiday still continued to perform her anti-lynching anthem to the chagrin of Anslinger and he had now formed a personal vendetta against her and was growing desperate. In many of his writings and memoirs, it was clear that Anslinger had become obsessed with Holiday,[35] which led him to direct his “ace” investigator, Colonel George White, to watch Holiday’s performances at Café Society and scout informants who would be willing to speak against Holiday. Colonel White found one in John Levy, a boyfriend of Holiday and Ebony Club manager, a fact that she did not learn until speaking with her lawyer before her second trial.[36] Holiday was again arrested for drug possession in her hotel room; however, by this time she was off heroin after kicking the habit from her prior stint in the Federal Woman’s Reformatory.[37] Many historians agree that the drugs were planted in an act of desperation by Colonel White, who was not averse to planting and dosing unsuspecting victims. White would go on to lead the infamous CIA operation in which prostitutes secretly dosed men and women with LSD in a Greenwich Village apartment while the CIA watched in the apartment opposite from a double-sided mirror.[38]
Holiday was found not guilty by a jury, but Anslinger had been successful in knocking Holiday off the pedestal, writing in his “Marijuana and Musicians” file that “she had slipped from the peak of her fame” and “her voice was cracking”.[39] Anslinger was ultimately responsible for her death, handcuffing her to a hospital bed shortly after she had collapsed suddenly in a Manhattan apartment. After claiming they had found drugs in the hospital room, he refused her any visitors, flowers, chocolates, magazines, and methadone and she succumbed to liver cirrhosis days later. Anslinger had succeeded in creating a such different image of Holiday by the time she died that most major news outlets either discussed it so briefly that it may well not even have been mentioned at all or they scorned her for dying of her drug addiction. Time, a mainstream magazine in which she was the reportedly the first black person ever to have their picture included, includes only a small section in the back of the issue discussing Holiday and lambastes her for being “born of indigent, teen-agers schooled in a Baltimore brothel” and “succumbing to the dope addiction which dogged her to the end”.[40]
Through government manipulation and the mixed reviews of “Strange Fruit”, it is clear to see the media did not have a straightforward opinion on Billie Holiday and instead created a very bipolar view of the entertainer after she began to fill a role as the new leader of the recent anti-lynching movement. As of 2020, no official anti-lynching law has ever been passed, although the Emmett-Till bill was introduced in 2020 to formally acknowledge lynching as a crime that, after slavery, is “the ultimate expression of racism in the United States”.[41] While Holiday was never officially a part of the NAACP and never formally got involved in politics similar to many other civil rights leaders before her, she was still a very useful tool in the NAACP public awareness campaign regarding lynchings. Her refusal to discontinue her performances of the song created her own form of protest, yet ultimately resulted in her alienation from the mainstream media and led to her death at the hands of a Treasury agent with a vendetta against a non-conformist black woman. Nevertheless, it is clear to see why the song was later voted as “Song of the Century” by Time.[42] “Strange Fruit” and its abrasion were important for the development of mass media; it forced publications to take a stance and grapple with real issues facing the Jim Crow America and led to an eventual shift in public opinion away from lynching.
Sources Cited
“Anti-Lynch Propaganda. In Swingtime, on a Disc .” Variety . May 10, 1939, 134 edition, sec. Music .
Baker, Nancy Kovaleff. “Abel Meeropol (a.k.a. Lewis Allan): Political Commentator and Social Conscience.” American Music 20, no. 1 (2002): 25-79. Accessed April 29, 2021. doi:10.2307/3052242.
“Best of the Century .” Time 154, no. 27, December 31, 1999.
Seguin, Charles, and David Rigby. “National Crimes: A New National Data Set of Lynchings in the United States, 1883 to 1941.” Socius, (January 2019). https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119841780.
[1] Billie Holiday and William Dufty, “Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition,” in Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Harlem Moon, 2006), pp. 94-103, 65.
[3] Charles Seguin and David Rigby, “National Crimes: A New National Data Set of Lynchings in the United States, 1883 to 1941,” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 5 (May 6, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119841780.
[4] David Margolick, Strange Fruit: the Biography of a Song (Harper Collins , 2001). P. 34
[8] Billie Holiday and William Dufty, “Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition,” in Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Harlem Moon, 2006), 94.
[9] Nancy Kovaleff Baker. “Abel Meeropol (a.k.a. Lewis Allan): Political Commentator and Social Conscience.” American Music 20, no. 1 (2002): 25-79. Accessed April 29, 2021. doi:10.2307/3052242.
[10] David Margolick, Strange Fruit: the Biography of a Song (Harper Collins , 2001. 42
[14] Special. (1949, Oct 29). Slug billie holiday’s escort in bar: MUSICIAN BEATEN BY DIXIE THUG resents party in old colony, motor city swank tavern ‘lady day’ humiliated. New York Amsterdam News (1943-1961)
[15] Davis, Angela Yvonne. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. New York: Vintage, 1999. 187
[18] Dorian Lynskey, 33 Revolutions per Minute (London: Faber, 2013).5
[19] Billie Holiday and William Dufty, “Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition,” in Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Harlem Moon, 2006), 95
[34] Billie Holiday and William Dufty, “Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition,” in Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Harlem Moon, 2006). 151
[35]Johann Hari, Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2015). 20
[36] Billie Holiday and William Dufty, “Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition,” in Lady Sings the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Harlem Moon, 2006), 186
[42] “Best of the Century ,” Time , December 31, 1999.
I was pretty proud of this paper so I decided to post it here in case anyone was unfamiliar with her story and why she died such a needlessly early death. She was a brilliant singer who deserved more than America gave her, just like so many others. For more information, be sure to read her autobiography even if it does have more than a few factual errors.
Chipper Dreher 