16. A Drug Czar’s Grudge Against a Jazz Legend
Billie Holiday (1915 – 1959), born Eleanora Fagan and nicknamed “Lady Day”, led a turbulent life. She was raised in a brothel, and was prostituted by her mother in her childhood. She was further traumatized by the death of her ill father, after he was denied medical care in a whites-only hospital because of segregation. That pain is reflected in Holiday’s rendition of Strange Fruit, a song about the lynching of blacks that she made her own, and that became an anthem of the budding civil rights movement. Holiday turned to drugs to cope with the pain. The United States vs. Billie Holiday, a 2021 biographical movie, addresses her addiction struggles. A key theme is Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger’s grudge against and relentless pursuit of Holiday. Anslinger pressures people in Holiday’s life to set her up for possession charges, and has her trailed by agents.
Anslinger also appoints an undercover agent to gather evidence against Holiday. How much of that was real? FBN Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger, who held that job for 32 years and spearheaded the criminalization of drugs, was an awful person. An extreme racist and bigot, even by his era’s standards, Anslinger demonized racial minorities and immigrants. He also hated jazz, a mongrel music of African, Caribbean, and European origins mating on American soil. It was the opposite of all that Anslinger believed in. He thought it was musical anarchy, and proof of primitive impulses in black people, about to erupt. As he described it in internal memos: “It sounded like the jungles in the dead of night“. Anslinger also thought marijuana made people insane. That combined with his racism to produce a toxic mix. He once stated: “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men“.
