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

As a prefatory exercise for this post, consider the “rule of 4%”: less than four percent of the players in professional orchestras with...

In Parts 1 and 2 of this four-part post I attempted a systems-level analysis of the means and mechanisms (“linchpins”) by which racism...

In Part 1 of this series of systems-level commentaries on Racism in Romantic Music (RRM), I discussed how the pervasive racism of the...

Dear Constant Reader, I’ve been absent from this blog for a while, partly because I needed to recharge, partly because I’m currently...

The Mother of Florence B. Price The tombstone (a marker, really) is in Achor, Columbiana County, Ohio. On it is the name of Florence...

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

Speaking Truth to Power In the late nineteenth century, the railroads were the primary means for shipping goods and materials quickly,...

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

A Commencement Letter from Langston Hughes, Shared with Margaret Bonds We are in an age of marches, of collective protests against...

[This is the fourth in a series of posts of “blogified” short entries from the forthcoming second, enlarged edition of my Historical...

[This is the second in a series of posts of “blogified” short entries from the forthcoming second, enlarged edition of my Historical...

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

The Voice of Margaret Bonds Rises in Three Events in the U.S. Capital This Weekend The estimable Margaret Bonds’s (1913-72) musical...

A Gospel Song by Florence Price and Langston Hughes Gets a Belated First Recording Popular exclamations about the trove of Florence Price...

W.E.B. Du Bois’s bold and brilliant civil-rights manifesto Credo was first published in 1904 and republished with revisions at the head...

Lady Jess and Ric’key Pageot Record the Recently Published Andante con espressione for Violin and Piano The Summer of 1926 was important...

A Seasonal Blessing in Word and Song from the Pen of W.E.B. Du Bois (1913) W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was a male womanist as well as an...

African Dance, on a Text by Langston Hughes, Gets Its Posthumous Premiere This Weekend On Sunday, November 14, 2021, Greg Watkins and the...

With a Playlist Before 1934, Margaret Bonds publicly programmed only all-White recitals. After 1934 she never did that again. Why the...