Billie Holiday Centennial: Behind The Harlem Premiere of 'Strange Fruit'

In the late 1930s, the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday moved to New York City in the first wave of the Great Migration and soon began working in the jazz clubs and speakeasies of Harlem. She is perhaps best known for the song "Strange Fruit." We asked MoMA curator Leah Dickerman to walk us through the development of the song and its relationship to New York City. 

MoMA curator Leah Dickerman calls it "an anguished cry" and walks us through the development of the song and its relationship to New York City.