A00032 - Caterina Jarboro, First African American to Sing with Chicago Opera Company

*Caterina Jarboro, the first African American to sing with the Chicago Opera Company, died.

Caterina Jarboro (1903-1986) sang the title role in Aida with the Chicago Opera Company in New York City in 1933.  Born Catherine Yarboro in Wilmington, North Carolina, she began her career in Broadway musicals, including Shuffle Along (1921) and Running Wild (1923).

A00031 - William Grant Still, Symphony Composer

Born in Woodville, Mississippi, William Grant Still (1895-1978) studied at Wilberforce University, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the New England Conservatory of Music.  Still worked in a great variety of musical settings, from playing in dance and theater orchestras, to supplying arrangements of popular music for African American show people, and was a prolific composer in the art-music tradition.  In 1936, Still was the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and became the first African American to have an opera performed by a major opera company in 1949, when New York City Opera put on Troubled Island.

A00030 - Thomas Dorsey, Father of Gospel

From this endorsement followed the first choruses, the first publishing houses, the first professional organizations, and the first paid gospel concerts.  Thomas Dorsey (1899-1993), the "Father of Gospel," founded the first gospel choir in the world with Theodore Frye at Chicago's Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1931.  Dorsey later established the first music publishing firm dedicated only to gospel music in 1932.  The 1930 endorsement of gospel music b the Baptist convention, which had been carried away by Dorsey's "If You See My Savior," called public attention to a major change that had been taking place in the music of black churches. The 1930 endorsement is often considered the starting point for the history of gospel music.

A00029 - Blanche Calloway, Bandleader

Blanche Calloway (1902-1973) was one of the most successful bandleaders of the 1930s.  For a while, she and her brother, Cab Calloway, had their own act.  

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she studied at Morgan State College, and later moved to Miami, Florida, where she became the first woman disk jockey on American radio.  Calloway toured from 1931 to 1944 with "The 12 Clouds of Joy" as a singer, dancer, and conductor.

A00028 - Eva Jessye, Choir Director

Eva Jessye (1895-1992) was a composer, musician, choral director, educator, writer, and actress, became the first African American woman to achieve acclaim as director of a professional choral group.  The Eva Jessye Choir performed regularly at the Capital Theater in New York City, from 1926 to 1929.  Jessye directed the choir in Hollywood's first African American musical, Hallelujah, in 1929.  She was born in Coffeyville, Kansas, graduated from Western University (Quindaro, Kansas), and later attended Langston University in Oklahoma.  

A00027 - DeFord Bailey, Grand Ole Opry Performer

DeFord Bailey, Sr. (1899-1982), a harmonica player, became the first African American musician to perform on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, on December 26, 1924.  Originally called the "The Barn Dance", the show's name was changed to "The Grand Ole Opry" in the autumn of 1927.  Bailey was perhaps the first African American heard on nationwide radio.  The next year, he was the first African American to have a recording session in Nashville, Tennessee.  Bailey recorded eight sides for RCA.  Known for his train sounds, Bailey was one of the most influential harmonica players in blues and country music, and one of the most popular performers in the first fifteen years of the Opry, the longest running radio show in the country.  Bailey was fired in 1941 as a by-result of the dispute between ASCAP and the newly formed BMI over payment for music played on the radio.  In 1991, a memorial marker was erected near Bailey's birthsite in Wilson County, Tennessee.

A00026 - Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia

Haile Selassie I, original name Tafari Makonnen (b. July 23, 1892, near Harer, Abyssinia (Ethiopia).— d. August 27, 1975, Addis Adaba, Ethiopia), emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 who sought to modernize his country and who steered it into the mainstream of post-World War II African politics. He brought Ethiopia into the League of Nations and the United Nations and made Addis Ababa the major center for the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union). 

Tafari was a great-grandson of Sahle Selassie of Shewa (Shoa) and a son of Ras (Prince) Makonnen, a chief adviser to Emperor Menelik II.  Educated at home by French missionaries, Tafari at an early age favorably impressed the emperor with his intellectual abilities and was promoted accordingly. As governor of Sidamo and then of Harer province, he followed progressive policies, seeking to break the feudal power of the local nobility by increasing the authority of the central government — for example, by developing a salaried civil service. He thereby came to represent politically progressive elements of the population. In 1911 he married Wayzaro Menen, a great-granddaughter of Menelik II.

When Menelik II died in 1913, his grandson Lij Yasu succeeded to the throne, but the latter’s unreliability and his close association with Islam made him unpopular with the majority Christian population of Ethiopia. Tafari became the rallying point of the Christian resistance, and he deposed Lij Yasu in 1916. Zewditu (Zauditu), Menelik II’s daughter, thereupon became empress in 1917, and Ras Tafari was named regent and heir apparent to the throne.

While Zewditu was conservative in outlook, Ras Tafari was progressive and became the focus of the aspirations of the modernist younger generation. In 1923, he had a conspicuous success in the admission of Ethiopia to the League of Nations.  In the following year, he visited Rome, Paris, and London, becoming the first Ethiopian ruler ever to go abroad. In 1928 he assumed the title of negus (“king”), and two years later, when Zewditu died, he was crowned emperor (November 2, 1930) and took the name of Haile Selassie (“Might of the Trinity”). In 1931 he promulgated a new constitution, which defined the limits of the Parliament. From the late 1920s on, Haile Selassie in effect was the Ethiopian government, and, by establishing provincial schools, strengthening the police forces, and progressively outlawing feudal taxation, he sought to both help his people and increase the authority of the central government.

When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Haile Selassie led the resistance, but in May 1936 he was forced into exile. He appealed for help from the League of Nations in a memorable speech that he delivered to that body in Geneva on June 30, 1936. With the advent of World War II, he secured British assistance in forming an army of Ethiopian exiles in the Sudan. British and Ethiopian forces invaded Ethiopia in January 1941 and recaptured Addis Ababa several months later. Although he was reinstated as emperor, Haile Selassie had to recreate the authority he had previously exercised. He again implemented social, economic, and educational reforms in an attempt to modernize Ethiopian government and society on a slow and gradual basis.

The Ethiopian government continued to be largely the expression of Haile Selassie’s personal authority. In 1955 he granted a new constitution giving him as much power as the previous one. Overt opposition to his rule surfaced in December 1960, when a dissident wing of the army secured control of Addis Ababa and was dislodged only after a sharp engagement with loyalist element.

Haile Selassie played a very important role in the establishment of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. His rule in Ethiopia continued until 1974, at which time famine, worsening unemployment, and the political stagnation of his government prompted segments of the army to mutiny. They deposed Haile Selassie and established a provisional military government that espoused Marxist ideologies. Haile Selassie was kept under house arrest in his own palace, where he spent the remainder of his life. Official sources at the time attributed his death to natural causes, but evidence later emerged suggesting that he had been strangled on the orders of the military government.

Haile Selassie was regarded as the messiah of the African race by  the Rastafarian movement.