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The Conversation USA

Decades after Billie Holiday’s death, ‘Strange Fruit’ is still a searing testament to injustice – and of faithful solidarity with suffering

  • Written by Tracy Fessenden, Professor of Religious Studies, Arizona State University
imageBillie Holiday records her penultimate album, 'Lady in Satin,' in New York in 1957.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Sixty-five years ago, on July 17, 1959, Billie Holiday died at Metropolitan Hospital in New York. The 44-year-old singer arrived after being turned away from a nearby charity hospital on evidence of drug use, then lay for hours on a...

Read more: Decades after Billie Holiday’s death, ‘Strange Fruit’ is still a searing testament to injustice –...

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