The movie The United States versus Billie Holiday, tells the story of how the popular
jazz singer Billie Holiday, was targeted by the United States government in the early
years of their war on drugs.
This video discusses what is fact and what is fiction in regards to the film.
The movie script draws upon, a section of a book by British journalist, Johann Hari
entitled, Chasing The Scream.
Hari's book is a history of the United States war on drugs implemented by the Federal Bureau
of Narcotics who began by targeting black jazz musicians and then zeroed in on Billie
Holiday as the focus of their anti-drug crusade.
But it was more than just about drugs.
The author, Johann Hari said this in a 2016 interview on The Social Exchange Podcast about
Harry Anslinger, the new commissioner of 1930's Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
"To Harry Anslinger, Billie Holiday was a symbol of everything that was going wrong
in the world. She was a African American, she was an African American woman, and she
was an African American woman singing a song against lynching and resisting white supremacy.
And she was a heroin addict."
Anslinger claimed that narcotics made black people forget their place in the fabric of
American society, and that jazz musicians were dangerously creating “Satanic” music
under the influence of marijuana.
The movie highlights the fact that the attacks on Billie Holiday, in the guise of a war on
drugs, was a cover for the repeated failed attempts to stop Billie from performing one
of her signature songs, Strange Fruit - a haunting lament for the Black Americans lynched
in the South.
The song was written by a Jewish school teacher, from the Bronx who was a member of the Communist
party and was viewed as subversive by the U.S. government; hence the persecution of
Billie Holiday for singing the song, in venues all over the country.
But, there was more to all of this as well.
It is a fact that Billie Holiday was a heavy drug user.
She was raped twice as a child, brought up in a brothel, worked as a prostitute by the
age of 13 and arrested at age 16.
She knew racism her whole life as demonstrated when her father died of pneumonia, after being
denied adequate health care because of the color of his skin.
And she as endured blatant racism as the first black woman to ever tour with an all white
band.
Billie Holiday also had to suffer at the hands of the abusive men who were lovers and husbands.
So, it is no wonder that Billie Holiday used drugs as a means to soothe the emotional pains
of her life.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us that by the mid-1940's, Billie Holiday was spending
$500 a week on drugs (that is over $9000 in today;s money) and that she was a frequent
drinker and user of marijuana, opium, cocaine and especially heroin.
Harry Anslinger's deep seated racism and his hatred for what he considered to be the perversions
of the jazz music coming out of the black community meant that he had to target one
individual among the community that would get the most notice.
And in this dogged effort, Anslinger decided to zero in on Billie Holiday.
He assigned a black agent named Jimmy Fletcher to track her drug use and arrest her under
any terms necessary.
According to the movie, Billie and Jimmy eventually became lovers. but is this true?
It is a fact that Jimmy Fletcher was a real person and he was assigned to track Billie's
every move.
Hari said in his book that Harry Anslinger hated to hire black agents, but if he sent
white guys into Harlem,they stood out so agent Jimmy Fletcher was his only choice.
The 2020 documentary released entitled, Billie, Jimmy Fletcher said in an interview that it
was good publicity for the bureau to go after a big star like Billie Holiday but Jimmy Fletcher
never said anything about being in love with Billie.
It was Hari, in his book, that said he had, a strong intuition, that they were lovers.
The film also touches on Billie's rumoured sexual relationship with actress Tallulah
Bankhead. It is true that because of her prostitution in her early years and drug use, Billie served
time in prison and she openly spoke of a number of lesbian relationships that she had while
incarcerated.
But there has never been any evidence to actually prove she had a sexual relationship with the
actress.
On July 17, 1959, Billie Holiday died at three ten A.M. of pulmonary edema and heart failure,
caused by cirrhosis of the liver. She was 44 years old.
On July 17th, 1959, Billie Holiday died at 3:10 a.m. of pulmonary edema and heart failure
caused by cirrhosis of the liver. She was 44 years old.
Initially, Billie had been taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver
disease and heart disease. According to Hari, "As she lay dying, her hospital room was raided,
and she was placed under police guard."
In the hospital, Billie went into heroin withdrawal. A doctor was brought into the hospital at
the insistence of her friends to prescribe methadone. She was given the methadone for
ten days and began to recover, put on weight and looked better.
But then, the methadone was stopped by agents of the Bureau of Narcotics.
Johann Hari reports in his book, that her best friend, Maely Dufty, insisted to anyone
who would listen that Billie had been effectively murdered by a conspiracy to break her, orchestrated
by the narcotics police.
Another friend said, “She was exhausted. She just didn’t want to go through it any
more.”
Whatever the true events of Billie Holiday's death, the movie's focus on Billie as a rebel
who railed against racism by singing the song, Strange Fruit, is a tribute to this brave
and strong woman in history.
Thank you for watching. And please subscribe for more videos on the Fabulous, Fierce & Feisty
Women In History.