The painful story of the connections between Elizabeth Keckley and Queens University of Charlotte -- and of a modern Margaret Bonds premiere at the intersection of those two.

In April 2026 Margaret Bonds's groundbreaking musical on the life of Elizabeth Keckley will receive its world premiere at Queens University of Charlotte (NC).

A miniature review-essay on the whitewashed myths of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, prompted by Abraham Klausner's memoir.

In 1955, Columbia Artists Management and Robert Shaw disinvited two Black soloists from the Robert Shaw Chorale's upcoming Southern tour. Margaret Bonds denounced their disinvitation in a press release -- and the soloists were reinvited.

March 17, 2025 Five years ago today, on St. Patrick’s Day in 2020, I set up my website , and the following day (March 18) I posted my...

With roots dating to the mid-1930s, Margaret Bonds's song "Note on Commercial Theater" has finally been published. Here is its story.

A free program note containing accurate, up-to-date information for those studying or planning to perform The Ballad of the Brown King.

Kamala Harris's housing initiative reflects the influence of Rev. Hamilton Boswell, nephew of Margaret Bonds & grandson of Dr. Monroe Majors

(Prefatory note: I began this first of the twelve Black History months of 2024-25 down with simultaneous COVID and flu – and the lost...

Some Historical Errata, Corrigenda, and Addenda As December nears, so do more performances of one of Margaret Bonds’s most important and...

A Conspirare Premiere and a Gratuitous Youthful Photo Langston Hughes’s poem Joy was first published in the collection The Weary Blues...

The Margaret Bonds / W.E.B. Du Bois Credo Returns to Its Roots Margaret Bonds’s relationship with her father was complicated but rich –...

Margaret Bonds’s Montomery Variations and Credo on the Same Program with the Hartford Chorale and Hartford Symphony Orchestra Margaret...

Sleep Song (text by Joyce Kilmer) Have you ever been in a crowd or out in public and heard a voice that you immediately recognize, even...

The world premiere of the “revised and extended” version of Margaret Bonds’s The Ballad of the Brown King (December 11, 1960) HISTORY WAS...

Fifty-one-year-old Owen Brady was found unconscious and riddled with bullets inside a wrecked and burning car that had crashed into the...

Four Early Performances of Margaret Bonds’s Spiritual Suite [This note is about Margaret Bonds’s Spiritual Suite – the surviving magnum...

On the Origins of He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand by Margaret Bonds Margaret Bonds is justly celebrated for her inspired and...

The Conservatory of the University of Missouri, Kansas City, Brings Margaret Bonds’s Civil-Rights Credo to the Home of Dred Scott’s...

Reflecting on Her Recorded Interview with James V. Hatch Most commentaries on Margaret Bonds either quote or refer to this passage: I was...