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By the end of the 1920's she was the highest paid black performer of her day, and was given the title "Empress of the Blues." She was known as a bold, confident artist.
During the heights of her success, her career began to flounder due to the financial issues of the Great Depression and a change in cultural mores.
By 1929, her and her husband Jack officially separated and by 1931 she stopped working with Columbia completely.
She was killed in a car accident and many believe if she were a white woman, she would have received the treatment needed to keep her alive and save her.