Lady Day

I thought that this was a great article about a piece of not just Baltimore or African American history but American history. It concerns the re-dedication of a statue of Billie "Lady Day" Holiday. It was originally dedicated in 1985 with protest from the creator, James Earl Reid, who did not appreciate the fact that part of the monument was omitted. The city did not want to show Mr. Reid's full vision of the monument which included panels that showed a lynched man connected to a baby via an umbilical cord.

I walked past this monument for most of my life and I can remember sitting next to it and looking at Lady Day sing the blues. I have provided a link to the full article here: http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=18392

After 24 years, city rededicates Billie Holiday monument with controversial panels intact
Jim Burger James Earl Reid celebrates the rededication of his billie holiday statue, now restored to his original vision for the piece.
By Erin Sullivan | Posted 7/22/2009
On a sticky and hot morning along Pennsylvania Avenue, the sound of a lone trumpet rises over the din of traffic and city buses cruising through the busy intersection at West Lafayette Avenue.

A crowd has gathered to watch as a black tarp is removed from an 8-foot, 6-inch tall statue of jazz singer Billie Holiday, which is set atop a massive polished base. Though the statue is the focal point of the work, the base demands attention as well--20,000 pounds of black granite, it holds two panels bearing rather arresting images. One is of a naked black man strung up by a rope around his neck; the other is of a male infant, umbilical cord still attached. According to artist James Earl Reid, who created the statue and was among those gathered around the it, the rope around the adult man's neck is connected, symbolically, to the umbilical cord in the other panel. The message, he says, is one that was often reflected in Holiday's lyrics: "A black man is in trouble from birth to death."

The statue was rededicated and unveiled at the corner of Pennsylvania and Lafayette in the city's Upton neighborhood on July 17, the 50th anniversary of the jazz singer's death. Originally put in place in a plaza on this corner more than 20 years ago, it was displayed incorrectly according to Reid, who protested its original dedication in 1985. Instead of the polished granite base he had envisioned--which would have held the panels of the lynched man, which represents the song "Strange Fruit," about lynching in United States during the Jim Crow era, and the newborn baby, which represents the song "God Bless the Child," in which Holiday sings "the strong gets more while the weak ones fade"--the city placed the statue on a shorter cement base that was not large enough to hold the panels.

The statue was also missing another element Reid says was significant: a crow eating a gardenia. "The gardenia represents the spirit of Billie Holiday, but also the spirit of black people," Reid says. "The crow is eating the spirit of Billie Holiday. It's a representation of the Jim Crow era and of racism."

Reid says the city's decision to stick the statue on an inferior base, without the visually and emotionally challenging images, took the impact out of the work. "It was a rush to judgment by the city at the time," Reid says. "And it effectively censored what the songs 'Strange Fruit' and 'God Bless the Child' were about. . . . In Billie's songs, she was very much in tune with what society was thinking and experiencing. In her songs, she lamented the plight of black men in America."

Ever since the original dedication, Reid has wanted to see the situation remedied. He says that in 2004, the city made a commitment to rededicate the statue as it was originally intended to appear but nothing ever materialized. "Baltimore magazine wrote an article that confirmed that they were going to do it," Reid says. "But [the city] started lagging."

Very little happened in the intervening years, Reid adds, until some associates with Maryland Lawyers for the Arts helped put him in touch with City Council Vice President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D). "I just poured my soul out to her, and she was very responsive," Reid says. "She got the ball rolling."

For the full article follow this link http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=18392