repost via @instarepost20 from @candybug_04 Her voice will break your heart, her life story will tear out your soul...Born #EleanoraFagan in Philadelphia, April 7, 1915, to an unwed teenage mother, she would later choose her stage name as a tribute to movie star Billie Dove and her father, Clarence Holiday. When Billie was a toddler, her mother moved to a poor neighborhood in Baltimore and briefly married Billie's father, but the union didn't last. At 10, Billie was raped by one of her neighbors. Soon thereafter, she was sent to a reform school known for meting out harsh punishments. "For years I used to dream about it and wake up hollering and screaming," Holiday wrote of her experiences. Holiday moved to New York with her mother in 1928. At 14, Billie was raped a second time and her attacker sentenced to a mere three months in jail. She supported herself on the streets for three years before she was arrested for solicitation. After being released from women's prison, she soon landed her first paid performing gig-$18 a week, & it wasn’t long until she became well-known around #Harlem for a distinctive vocal style most were at a loss to describe. After being discovered by John Hammond in 1933, she would meet Lester Young, the horn legend who became a lifelong friend. They toured the US & in the 1930s that meant coming head-on against racial discrimination. She was told to darken her face so the audience would not mistake her for white and get angry she was performing with black musicians. Such experiences may have informed what was to become one of the most haunting songs in all of American music, "Strange Fruit". Holiday would go on to make great recordings throughout the 1940s and 50s. She was admitted to the hospital for liver and heart problems in May 1959. The authorities levied one final insult by arresting her ON her death bed on narcotics charges after someone allegedly found heroin in her hospital room. A guard was placed outside the room, & flowers and notes from well-wishers were removed, as was her record player. When Billie died, she had $750 taped to her leg and another .70 in the bank. She was 44. . . #28daysofblackhistory #strangefruit #billieh