In 1977, the city of Baltimore commissioned sculptor, educator, curator, and activist James Earl Reid to create a monument celebrating internationally renowned jazz singer Billie Holiday. Holiday was known for her distinctive jazz vocal phrasing—and for being targeted by the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger. During the commissioning process, Baltimore city officials battled Reid over sculptural medallions for the pedestal that referred to the Jim Crow era and Holiday’s anti-lynching anthem, “Strange Fruit,” and included charged imagery. In 1985, the statue was unveiled incomplete: Billie Holiday stood on a bare cement pedestal, not the intended six-foot-high granite base and bronze reliefs. Mr. Reid boycotted the dedication ceremony. His proposal was not fully realized until 2009, the 50th anniversary of Billie Holiday’s death, when the city finally added the granite pedestal and medallions as originally intended.