This is particularly true for the song "Strange Fruit," which she first performed in 1938. According to PBS, Billie would always sing this song without an encore, which was followed by the lights ...

So much, in fact, that audiences usually don’t know how to react when a singer reaches the end of “Strange Fruit,” as searing an indictment of the horrors of racism as any penned in English.

Time magazine named her 1939 recording of "Strange Fruit" the song of the 20th century. "In this sad, shadowy song about lynching in the South," Time wrote in 1999, "history's greatest jazz singer ...

[Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images] Abel Meeropol, a New York City teacher and songwriter who used the pen name Lewis Allan, wrote “Strange Fruit” after seeing a photograph of a ...