NYC announces 4 new female statues including Billie Holiday

New York City is announcing plans to create four new statues of women in an effort to address the gender imbalance in public monuments.

The statues will honour jazz singer Billie Holiday as well as a pioneering doctor, a lighthouse keeper and a teacher who helped desegregate public transportation in 1854.

First lady Chirlane McCray made the announcement Wednesday.

In November, city officials announced plans for a statue of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to serve in Congress.

Holiday was a world-renowned singer whose song “Strange Fruit” dramatized the horrors of lynching.

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Teacher Elizabeth Jennings Graham filed a lawsuit after she was thrown off of a streetcar that barred black riders.

The other new honorees are lighthouse keeper Katherine Walker and pediatrician Helen Rodriguez Trias.

The Associated Press