A statue of

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...

is installed at Billie Holiday Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue in the neighborhood of Upton in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, United States.

History and design

Plans for a memorial to Holiday in Baltimore began in 1971; a drug treatment centre and statue were envisioned, but only the statue was eventually built. The statue was part of the planned urban renewal of the surrounding area of Upton. The Royal Theatre, where Holiday performed, originally stood diagonally opposite the statue. Holiday was raised in Baltimore. The sculptor James Earl Reid was commissioned to design the monument to Holiday in 1977. Disputes over the rising costs of the work led to Reid eventually distancing himself from the piece. Reid had also intended that the statue be placed on a pedestal. It was finally unveiled in 1985, without Reid in attendance at the ceremony. The sculpture cost $113,000 (). The statue of Holiday is in height. Holiday is depicted in a strapless evening gown wearing her signature

gardenia ''Gardenia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the coffee family, Rubiaceae, native to the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, Madagascar and Pacific Islands, and Australia. The genus was named by Carl Linnaeus and John Ellis aft ...

s in her braided hair. The sculpture was completed in 2009 with the addition of bronze

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

panels depicting events in the African-American struggle for civil rights. These panels had been rejected as too controversial at the time of the statue's unveiling in 1985, and their creation had been approved with additional funding of $76,000 in 2007. The statue was rededicated in 2009 with a base of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

. At its 2009 unveiling Reid said that " olidaygave such a rich credibility to the experiences of black people and the black artist". One of the panels depicts a child with its

umbilical cord In placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or ''funiculus umbilicalis'') is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord is physiologic ...

attached, in reference to the lyrics of Holiday's song " God Bless the Child". A second panel depicts the lynching of an African-American man in reference to the 'strange fruit hanging from strange trees' in the lyrics of Holiday's signature song "

Strange Fruit "Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937. The song protests the lynching of Black ...

". In reference to the

Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

, a crow is depicted eating a gardenia. It is situated behind Holiday, and above Reid's signature.

References

{{Billie Holiday, state=collapsed 1985 establishments in Maryland 1985 sculptures Billie Holiday Bronze sculptures in Maryland Cultural depictions of jazz musicians Landmarks in Baltimore Monuments and memorials in Maryland Outdoor sculptures in Baltimore Sculptures of African Americans Sculptures of women in Maryland Statues in Maryland Statues of musicians in the United States Tourist attractions in Baltimore Upton, Baltimore