Skip to main content
Billie Holiday s God Bless the Child Gave Blacks Their Own Mournful But Hopeful Over the Rainbow
Billie Holiday s God Bless the Child Gave Blacks Their Own Mournful But Hopeful Over the Rainbow
A columnist writes that God Bless the Child is at least as historically important as Strange Fruit to the Black community, with its bracing mixture of hard-scrabble practicality and hope.
Jeremy Helligar, provided by
Singer/author Mary Wilson, one of the founding members of the legendary singing trio, The Supremes, died in her sleep in Las Vegas on Feb. 8, 2021, due to causes unknown.
/
Mary Wilson performs onstage during Project Angel Food s Annual Angel Awards in 2019. // Getty Images for Project Angel Food, Charley Gallay
Updated at 10:30 a.m. ET
Mary Wilson, one of the co-founders of The Supremes, died Monday at the age of 76, her publicist announced.
Wilson passed away suddenly at her Henderson, Nev., home, the singer s longtime friend and publicist Jay Schwartz said in a statement. No cause of death was given.
Wilson was a trendsetter who broke down social, racial and gender barriers, Schwartz said in his statement.
Wilson was born Mar. 6, 1944, in Greenville, Miss.; not long after her birth, her parents headed to St. Louis and then Chicago for better opportunities, but separated soon after. As a three-year-old, Wilson was sent to Detroit to live with her aunt and uncle. As she told the
Martha Reeves got her final letter from Mary Wilson two weeks ago.
She didn’t realize that’s what it would be. But Reeves now cherishes the note from her “dear angel friend” and fellow Motown star, who was home in Las Vegas, eager to get through the pandemic and back onto the road. Someday, they’d be together, Wilson vowed to Reeves, sharing stages again, just as they’d done for decades.
Reeves and others in Motown’s tight-knit family were reeling Tuesday at news of Wilson’s unexpected death Monday evening in Henderson, Nevada, outside Las Vegas. The Clark County Coroner office told the Free Press she died of hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, a condition related to high blood pressure.