Because She Sang, We Speak: Honoring Billie Holiday’s Legacy of Truth

If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say that you enjoyed it.- Zora Neale Hurston Before there were hashtags.Before there were v

Before there were hashtags.
Before there were viral videos.
Before the world “believed” survivors or mourned public murders on camera…

There was Billie Holiday.

A Black woman with a voice full of grief and power.
A truth-teller in a time when truth could cost you your life.
And it nearly did.

Her song “Strange Fruit” wasn’t just a melody—it was a reckoning.
A haunting callout of the brutal lynchings of Black Americans.
It was banned. Condemned. Tracked by the FBI.
Because the truth?
Was too loud.

Let’s be honest:
If Billie Holiday were here today, she would still be punished.

They’d tell her:

“You’re too angry.”
“Don’t talk about lynching—it makes people uncomfortable.”
“Shut up and sing.”

“You live in America. What have you to complain about?”

“You are a beautiful light-skinned woman in America. What’s your problem?”
“Your past/color/being female makes you unworthy to speak.”

They’d shame her for being prostituted as a child.
Mock her for her addiction struggles.
Erase her trauma from childhood abuse.
Minimize the racism she endured.
Laugh at her mental health battles.
And label her a “complainer” for wanting too much—just for asking not to be murdered for being Black.

What Billie Holiday endured wasn’t just racism.
It was systematic silencing.
Punishment for daring to be a Black woman telling the truth out loud.

So while we praise voices speaking up today—about violence, injustice, inequality—let us NEVER forget who walked before them.
Who paid in blood, in breath, in brokenness.

We honor women like Billie Holiday, not just for their art.
But for their unbreakable spirit.
For opening the door to truth, even when the world slammed it shut in her face.
For surviving—and singing—anyway.

Let her name be remembered not just in melody, but in mission.

🖤 For every woman who has been told to quiet down…
🖤 For every girl whose truth was too raw for polite society…
🖤 For every Black woman who bore witness to horror and still dared to sing…

We speak.
We survive.
We honor.

We RISE!