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Photo 1. The Tuskegee Choir at Carnegie Hall, February 8, 1933. Tuskegee University Archives, Tuskegee University. Used with permission.

copation jazz ensemble, and amassed a choir and band program of the Grand Opening of Radio City Music
in August 1929 to audition to win a spot as the Black Hall in NYC in 1932-33.
performance group for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Imagine taking 110 singers via train to New York to
His ensembles were chosen to perform at the fair. 8 spend a month in the midst of the Great Depression
that overtook the nation. While there, the Tuskegee
Choir sang a birthday concert for incoming president
Franklin Delano Roosevelt at his residence and secured
1930-1955: Faculty Member at Tuskegee a date to perform in Carnegie Hall (Photo 1). On the
The president of Tuskegee Institute, Dr. Robert way back to Alabama, the choir sang for outgoing pres-
Moton, summoned Dawson back to his alma mater in ident Herbert Hoover in the White House.
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1930 to become the director of the school of music as Once back in Tuskegee, Dawson put the finishing
a part of Tuskegee’s expansion into a four-year college. touches on his extended work, Negro Folk Symphony. In-
Dawson was much revered and highly sought after by tent on making certain the world knew that a Black
the college; his salary at Tuskegee was second only to man had composed a symphony, Dawson included the
the president. 9 word Negro in the title. As long as I knew him, he used
Much like the Jubilee Singers at Fisk University, he and defended “Negro” as the appropriate word to re-
wasted no time in putting Tuskegee on the map with fer to members of his race. He noted that this was a
his incredible Tuskegee Choir, who sang Dawson’s own common word across all the romance languages used
arrangements. By using the music created by enslaved to name African Americans, and as such, he would not
African Americans as the basis for his inspiration, Daw- use “Black,” “Afro-American,” or “African American.”
son harmonized and utilized compositional techniques World-renowned conductor Leopold Stokowski
in crafting exciting choral arrangements that thrilled of the internationally famous Philadelphia Orchestra
and wowed audiences and music critics alike. Within chose Dawson’s symphony for premiere in Novem-
two years, Dawson succeeded in securing a spot on the ber 1934 in both Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall

CHORAL JOURNAL September 2024 Volume 65 Number 2 9