And while she is legendary for her singing, she was also a civil rights activist and the victim of a decades-long campaign by the federal government to silence her. Her story is ready to be told in two new features.
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WATCH: Sandy Kenyon interviews Lee Daniels and Audra Day
A new movie by Lee Daniels, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, now on Hulu.
WABC's sister-station, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, will also be releasing a companion documentary, Looking for Lady Day, on our family of streaming apps.
The documentary will take you to the places she stayed and sang, meet a Philadelphia musician who played with her and show you where she was born, arrested and tried.
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Philadelphia was the center of it all and so was Billie Holiday's song, Strange Fruit.
* Special thanks to The Clef Club, Harriett's Bookshop and the Charles L Blockson Afro American collection at Temple University Libraries.