# @EastOrangeRCA on Facebook

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.facebook.com/1386922296948975/posts/1234057802235426
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/69494150-EastOrangeRCA-facebook
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/60a22376ad.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-02-20T18:14:52.000+00:00

## Caption

#EORCA's #BlackHistoryMonth celebration of Jazz continues on with a deeper look at the genre as a vehicle for social change.

This week, we focus on the legendary BILLIE HOLIDAY and one of her most iconic and important songs - "Strange Fruit."

🎤 Born in Philadelphia in 1915, Holiday is regarded as one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. But one of her most famous songs was one she almost didn't perform.

🍇 "Strange Fruit" was originally written as a poem by a Jewish American named Abel Meeropol after he saw a photo depicting the lynching of two Black teens in Indiana in the 1930s. Meeropol ended up turning the poem into song and performed it with his wife Anne and another African American singer, Laura Duncan, before Holiday heard about it while working at New York's first integrated nightclub, Cafe Society. 

🤔 Initially fearful of reprisals for singing such a polarizing song, Holiday eventually recorded it alongside the Cafe Society Band in 1939 - not with her primary record label, Columbia, but with an independent jazz label (Commodore Records) due to Columbia's reluctance to back it.

✊🏾 Considered one of the first protest songs of the Civil Rights Movement, "Strange Fruit" went on to become the best selling record of Holiday's career (1 million copies sold) and was named TIME's "Song of the Century" in 1999. Despite the record's success, Holiday's fears of retaliation were warranted, as she was targeted by the U.S. government throughout the remainder of her career and until her passing in 1959 at the age of 44.

⭐ The song has been covered by many other legendary artists, including Nina Simone, Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Jeff Buckley. Holiday received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1987 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.

📖 You can learn more about Billie Holiday from this article by the National Museum of African American History & Culture (https://nmaahc.si.edu/billie-holiday) or this one from PBS (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/the-story-behind-billie-holidays-strange-fruit/17738/). Holiday's life was also the topic of the 2021 film, "The United States vs. Billie Holiday," starring singer Andra Day.

🗓️ Thank you to everyone that attended our two BHM Jazz Pop-Ups on February 13 and February 19 - and special thanks to our performers for each, Jacque Johnson's Sidewalk Swing and the Cicely Tyson High School Jazz Band! Join us for our BHM Closeout Celebration on Wednesday, February 25 from 5-8pm at the East Orange Public Library!

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## Tags

eorca, blackhistorymonth

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