I am currently most interested in Jackson’s tenure as music director at Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta. His activities at Washington, the first public high school for African Americans in the state of Georgia, touch on several fields that I happen to have outside expertise in, although the issue of race literally colors (ha ha) the significance of Jackson’s work in each case. I thought I would make a list of my interests as they pertain to this period in Jackson’s career, and explore the unique perspective that Jackson brings to the table.
First, some context. Booker T. Washington High School opened in 1924 under the auspices of the Atlanta Board of Education. The elegant four-story building was designed by the renowned (white) Atlanta architect Eugene C. Wachendorff, and a statue of Washington—venerated for promoting African American education and uplift after the Civil War—was placed in front. The statue is a perfect replica of that which stands at the Tuskegee Institute, a black college founded by Washington in Alabama. According to the Tuskegee Institute’s website, the statue “shows Dr. Washington pulling away from a crouching half-concealed former slave the veil of ignorance and superstition. The larger than life image of Dr. Washington is an expression of the level of his hopes and dreams. The former slave is sitting on an anvil and next to a plow which represent the value Dr. Washington placed on manual labor. The man kneeling represents strength and prowess. The book represents the strength of mind.”
Dedication to racial uplift was at the heart of Jackson’s work as music director and can be understood as the impetus for all of the activities he carried out under the Washington High School banner.
And now for my motivations.
1. Music Education
A poorly defined topic, to be sure, but here is the question I want to ask: Why do specific communities, both now and in the past, value music education? And how might the answer to that question be different for black and white communities? Uplift, in the sense of social climbing, is certainly a motivator for white communities. But so is nostalgia and the fear of progress, which certainly does not characterize black education. For now I will let this question stand as a theme for future investigation.
2. Music Appreciation
This is related to the issue of music education, but applies more to adult communities than to school children, and focuses on listening instead of creation. The white music appreciation movement was in full swing by the 1920s, and boasted books, a series of Victor records, and eventually radio programs. It had a number of goals: to combat the rise of jazz, to promote good morals, to preserve the musical property of an embattled elite class, etc. Whatever the motivation, there was a genuine fear that, if steps were not taken, the great tradition of canonized art music would be lost and society would suffer as a result.
I am certain that many black musicians felt this same affection for European art music (Jackson himself was playing the Largo from Dvořák’s New World Symphony in the famous photo), but they had bigger concerns. A mastery of European art music, either as performer or listener, was a gateway to eventual equality with whites. It was a way to simultaneously curb the baser elements of black culture and to demonstrate to white onlookers that “the race” was worthy of respect and inclusion.
Booker T. Washington High School took its role as a beacon of African American progress seriously, and sought to educate the community beyond its walls. A newsletter addressed “To our patrons and friends” and dated January 24, 1929, lays out the importance of this mission:
The language used here is largely universal: the letter presents the claim that the music of “the masters” is objectively great and the hope that all citizens of Atlanta will come to love it. One phrase, however, reveals that the object of these recitals is somewhat more focused, and that phrase is “our people.” The purpose here is not really to transform the entire city of Atlanta. It is to lift up and improve the African American population.In Graham Jackson, the High School has one of the most accomplished organists in the South. He is a wonderfully gifted young man - chuck full of the Spirit of Music. With him, music is a passion. He moves and lives with the masters and would be very unhappy out of their company. We want to diffuse this spirit. We are very anxious that all of the people, botht [sic] the grown-ups and the children learn the finer points of music.
This Organ Recital is our Extension Course in Music Appreciation. It should become an Atlanta Institution - a part of the religious and cultural life of our people. You can make it so by attending yourself and by bringing your friends.
It is a fine hour for the parent and child to spend together. It is a fine hour for friends to meet and commune with the greatest composers of classical and sacred music.
The Organ Recital is here to stay because you will attend, and because hundreds like you will attend, and Atlanta Will Indeed Become a City Of Music Lovers.
Did white people attend these recitals at the African American Bethel Church (AME) in downtown Atlanta? I would very much like to know. The letter makes no reference to race whatsoever, and the audience is described only as “the music lovers of the city.”
3. Community Singing
How could I ever pursue a research project that did not include community singing? But we’re in luck.
I have a program from a concert given by the music departments of Washington High School and D.T. Howard Junior High School, another black public institution in Atlanta (both, incidentally, attended by Martin Luther King, Jr.). The concert took place on May 5, 1939, at the City Auditorium as part of the Atlanta Music Festival: an annual celebration of African American musicians performing mostly European music that dated back to 1910 and was founded as a means of racial uplift! Maybe all of these topics are the same.
The program opened with a community singing rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (Negro National Anthem), words by James Weldon Johnson (1899) and music by his brother, John Rosamond Johnson (1900). The poem was written in honor of Booker T. Washington and first recited by school children in honor of Lincoln’s birthday. It is still sung by children at the Atlanta Music Festival today:
Later in the program the audience was invited to join in singing the last stanza of the spiritual “Great Day.” No text was provided.Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
let our rejoicing rise,
high as the listening skies, let it resound loud as the rolling sea
sing a song full of faith that the dark past has taught us,
sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
let us march on till victory is won.Stony the road we trod,
bitter the chast’ning rod,
felt in the day that hope unborn had died;
yet with a steady beat,
have not our weary feet,
come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
we have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
where the white gleam of our star is cast.God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
thou who has by thy might,
led us into the light,
keep us forever in the path, we pray
lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee,
least our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee,
shadowed beneath the hand,
may we forever stand,
true to our God,
True to our native land.
4. Something Funny
Because, after all, what is a research project without something funny?
On September 14, 1935, Jackson received the following letter from the Superintendent of High Schools:
Dear Sir:
Dr. Sutton has given permission for you to attend the convention to which you have been invited for the week beginning September 23. This is the second request I have had this fall for you to be absent from school. I hope you will have the courtesy to decline offers to perform during school hours when it interferes with your school work. It is not fair to Dr. Sutton or myself for pressure to be brought to bear on us for you to be absent from school.
Yours very truly,
H. Reid Hunter
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