Billie Holiday Thesis

Who truly is the best American? It’s surely a tough question to answer, considering there’s so much debate about the topic, but I feel compelled to say Billie Holiday. First of all, Holiday made a plethora of contributions to society and the way we look at each other. She was a fascinating black role model despite her flaws and an abundance of vices. Her stance on prohibition also aided in it being repealed. She expressed her disdain for racism boldly with her music. In addition to these factors, she continued to be a courageous and confident woman who surpassed the limits of society's limitations for black women. Finally, for these reasons, I feel that Billie Holiday is the best American -- and soon, you will too.

Billie was the daughter …show more content…
A young, beautiful, black woman with a voice as sweet as honey. Like a roller coaster, the up notes higher than the sky and lows deeper than the ocean. Of course, with such a soulful, unique voice she was adored by countless amounts of people without even knowing how to read a note. Her poignant voice is still considered to be one of the greatest jazz voices. Likewise, she ended up composing a song titled “Strange Fruit” about the racist lynchings that occurred. You can take from the song that it would be strange to view people hanging from trees like a type of “strange fruit.” Holiday was obviously not afraid to prepare such a bold statement about something that she believed in so much and cared about. As a matter of fact, she made her opinion known to bounteous amounts of people and persisted with her efforts to abandon racism and bring about equality to this new …show more content…
She was known for her copious drug use and therefore a man by the name of Jimmy Fletcher was hired to track Billie’s every move.He’d heard rumors of her heroin usage and was on the case to catch her. Fletcher was also hinted at to have been racist in his lifetime, but he’d deny that and continue on to sell drugs to people to gain their false trust. Once, after selling to Billie, he went and raided her house after pretending to have been sent to deliver a telegram for her. Fletcher was an extremely deceptive man and fooled an abundant amount of people so as to gain their trust, but Billie would eventually have to get past this too. Maybe she wouldn’t abandon her drug use completely, but her efforts were acknowledged nonetheless. Sadly, she ended up in the hospital for her usage of drugs and was admitted to the hospital for heart and liver problems. She was so addicted that she even once had heroin delivered to the hospital for her, which she was incriminated