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After a few moments of silence, the crowd gave her a standing ovation. At the end of the song, the spotlight went out and she left the stage. She made it the last song in her set, with the club lights dimmed. She tried it out at a party and was amazed at the reaction it got. He sang the song, ‘Strange Fruit,’ for Billie, who didn’t think much of it, but he wanted her to sing it at the club. Songwriter Abel Meeropol visited the club’s owner with a song he had written in response to seeing a disturbing photo of some racial violence in the South. Annoyed that Artie Shaw, the bandleader, didn’t speak up for her, she quit singing with him and was asked to sing at the Café Society, a new club where black people could sit anywhere they wanted. She could perform at the Blue Room in New York, but was told she couldn’t speak with the customers or wander around the hotel, where people might think she was a guest. October 1938, New York City: This time, Billie’d had enough.Īlthough she was happy to be working steadily with a popular band, Billie Holiday was frustrated there were still so many restrictions put on her because of her race.
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