The Time I Stumbled On Billie Holiday's 100th Birthday Party at Her West Baltimore Statue - Entrepreneur Generations

Sculptor Reid discusses his Billie Holiday statue on her 100th Birthday.

This year, April 7th occurred during spring break from BCPSS, and I heard something on NPR about it being the centennial anniversary of Billie Holiday's birth. I had been putting off visiting the statue, located at the corner of Lafayette Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue, and thought it was the perfect day to go.

Holiday was born in Philadelphia, but spent her childhood in Baltimore, mostly in a poor neighborhood near Fells Point (an area I've never really investigated, but I know they hold Billie Holiday events, and will someday). The statue, however, is located on the opposite side of the city, on Pennsylvania Avenue, an area of the city that used to be a hub of African American culture on the east coast. the statue stands directly across from the remaining marquee of the Royal Theater, which was open from 1922-1971 and up there with the Apollo Theater in Harlem as a great African American theater; Duke Ellington, Etta James, Nat King Cole, and dozens of other great performers performed there. However, today the Druid Hill Neighborhood area has a lot of blight mixed in between its small parks and painted walls, with plenty of vacant houses and much crime; its a bit sad to see the remnants of the arts district that used to be.

Still, on that day on April 7th, and in subsequent visits, Billie Holiday stands beautiful against the sky in the modest little court that the city paid $286,000 to renovate in 2009. There's an interesting history with the sculpture, which was censored in the 1980s as people thought sculptor James Earl Reid's images of a lynching to represent Holiday's most famous song, "Strange Fruit," were too graphic. The sculptor was renovated in 2009, with Reid's original intent maintained.

Birthday Card for Billie Holiday.

On the 100th anniversary celebration, there were about 20 people gathered around the statue, with Reid -- tall and in a hat below -- describing some of the choices he made. The crow, for example, in the gardenia tree (Holiday's signature flower) represented the Jim Crow south, which "Strange Fruit" so movingly protests. I stood for a while, listening to Reid (who seems like a really interesting character, who once had a case over one of his sculptures go to the Supreme Court, and Thurgood Marshall, who grew up just a couple blocks from this Billie Holiday statue, wrote his winning decision), when I was asked to sign Billie Holiday's Birthday Card, which I photographed below.

It was a nice event, the sort of randomly beautiful events that draw from history and culture that I've become used to seeing in Baltimore. It also had some themes of a young vs. old conflict, as the mostly older people who were talking were soon joined by a young woman passing by with her young child. After listening to a little bit from the visitors bemoaning the crime in the area today, she asked to speak, and spoke of her brother, who was murdered just a few steps away in front of the housing project near where Holiday's statue stands. With tears, she asked for more support and less blaming, and received much applause.

It was a powerful moment within a powerful event. I love Baltimore.

The graphic "Strange Fruit" image that was censored in the 1980s.

Side view of statue.

A young woman's passionate plea for support.

from Epiphany in Baltimore http://ift.tt/1R6Q2JS The Time I Stumbled On Billie Holiday's 100th Birthday Party at Her West Baltimore Statue - Entrepreneur Generations

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