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Performing Racial Uplift

The multi-talented E. Azalia Hackley (1867-1922) became nationally famous as a concert artist, music teacher and race leader. Her name was respected in virtually every African-American household in the early twentieth century. Growing up in black Detroit, she began touring as a pianist and soprano soloist while only in her teens. By the late-1910s, she had toured coast-to-coast, earning glowing reviews. Her concert repertoire consisted of an innovative blend of spirituals, popular ballads, virtuosic showstoppers and classical pieces. She also taught music while on tour and visited several hundred black schools, churches and communities during her career. In addition, she traveled overseas and, in London and Paris, she studied singing with William Shakespeare and Jean de Reszke—two of the classical music world’s most renowned pedagogues. Her acceptance into these famous teachers’ studios confirmed her extraordinary musicianship, and was also a “first” for an African-American singer. Hackley’s activist philosophy was absolutely unique. Unlike most activists of her era, she did not align herself, unequivocally, with either Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. Du Bois in the struggle to eradicate racism. Instead, she created her own mediatory philosophical approach. To carry out her agenda, she harnessed strategies not usually associated with racial uplift initiatives, such as giving music lessons to large audiences, and delivering lectures on the ecumenical religious movement known as New Thought. This book reclaims her legacy, and details the talent, energy, determination and unprecedented worldview she brought to the cause of racial uplift.