Today in Labor History April 15, 1894: Bessie Smith was born on this day. Many consider her the greatest blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. Her parents died when she was young. She began performing with Ma Raney to support herself. She died from a car crash at the age of 43. Edward Albee wrote a play, The Death of Bessie Smith (1959), based on the rumor that she died because a whites-only hospital wouldn’t admit her. However, she was picked up by an ambulance from the G. T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital in Clarksdale, where her right arm was amputated. She later died from her other injuries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bo3f_9hLkQ

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