22 • October 7, 2021 - October 13, 2021
THE NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS
IN
THE
CLASSROOM
Maud Cuney-Hare, an early Black musicologist and musician
By HERB BOYD Special to the AmNews
Maud and another mixed-race student, Florida Des Verney soon encountered the complaints of other students when their ancestry was revealed. A protest was mounted to have them exclud-
Any mention of forerunners of African American women musicologists is incomplete if Maud Cuney-Hare is not Maud Cuney-Hare listed. Before Eileen Southern and D. Antoinette Handy made their mark in the category, there was Maud Cuney Hare. Born Feb. 16, 1874, in Galveston, Texas, she was the daughter of Adelina Dowdy and Norris Wright Cuney, a mixed-race couple, though her father was of majority-white ancestry. Her father was one of eight mixed-race children of Adeline Stuart, who was an enslaved housekeeper for Gen. Philip Minor Cuney. After the war, Gen. Cuney, one of the largest slaveholders in Texas, freed her and his children by her. Even before the Civil ed from the dormitory. Maud War ended, Gen. Cuney had sent and her father defied the adhis mixed-race sons, Joseph and ministration, which was under Norris, to Pittsburgh to be educat- pressure from its white southern ed. Later, Norris worked on steam- financial donors. W.E.B Du Bois boats on the Mississippi River and was among the students and subsequently became a leader community members who chalof the Texas Republican Party. In lenged the conservatory and its Galveston, where Maud was born, attempt to exclude Maud and he was appointed collector of cus- Florida. While Florida capitulattoms at the port. ed and moved on, Maud stood Along with his duties at the port, her ground, explaining that “I reNorris founded a business of ste- fused to leave the dormitory, and vedore workers that employed because of this, was subjected to hundreds of employees that grew many petty indignities. I insisted into a union. He was also a vora- upon proper treatment.” cious reader, including ShakeAlmost expectantly, Maud speare, and a violinist and singer of became a member of the highly some reputation. Maud’s mother vocal and politically conscious was also a gifted pianist and singer. neighborhood where she lived It was in a household infused with in Boston. Her friendship with music and literature where Maud Du Bois that began with his supcame of age. Inevitably, after com- port for her defiance at the Conpleting high school in Galveston, servatory grew deeper and soon she was accepted as a student at she was immersed in the activithe New England Conservatory ties that occurred at Josephine St. of Music. Her piano teacher was Pierre Ruffin’s home. In fact, for a Edwin Klahre and she studied short period of time she was entheory under Martin Roeder. Her gaged to Du Bois who described tutorial in literature was at Har- her as “a tall, imperious brunette, vard’s Lowell Institute. with gold-bronze skin, brilliant eyes and coils of black hair.”
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Maud returned to Texas after graduation from the Conservatory and began private lessons with pianist Emil Ludwig. A portion of her time and working hours was given to the students at the Texas Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Institute for Colored Youth in the 1890s. There were also her performances at the Austin Opera House where she once more asserted her social and political activism against the segregated seating that relegated African Americans to the balconies. On one occasion when her demand was refused, she and Ludwig cancelled a concert date and performed at the Texas Institute for Colored Youths where there was no segregation. She also taught at the Settlement House program of the Institutional Church in Chicago and in Prairie View, Texas in 1903 and 1904. Among the singers she collaborated with was the Canadian baritone William Howard Richardson in 1913. They would tour together for 20 years, including being the first musicians of color to perform at Boston Public Library’s concert-lecture series. Meanwhile, Maud launched her Allied Artists Center that encompassed a full retinue of artistic endeavors. Though essentially a center for African American aspirants in the arts, it was open to all. When she was not administering the center, Maud was busy as a performer and composer. She wrote and directed the play “Antar of Araby” (1929) based on the Islamic poet Antar bin Shaddad with an overture composed by Clarence Cameron White and incidental music by Montague Ring. As a musicologist, her interests were wide, touching on the music and folklore traditions of Mexico, Cuba,
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. From her travels she collected a vast amount of artifacts and musical knowledge that would later be used in her books, lectures, and teaching. There was even a column she edited in the NAACP’s The Crisis magazine, again uniting her with Du Bois, and her articles were published in the Christian Science Monitor, the Musical Quarterly and other journals. Perhaps her best-known work was “Negro Musicians and Their Music” in 1936 where she compiled a veritable compendium of African American musical history. However, because of her dislike for ragtime and jazz she failed to include the music of significant jazz notables such as Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. Even so, noted pianist and arts leader Josephine Harreld Love praised it for its meticulous scholarship and deemed it a “priceless legacy of accomplished documentation.” Unfortunately, she never saw the completed and edited version since she was crippled by cancer and died before it was published. She was first married to J. Frank McKinney, a doctor of mixed raced but they divorced in 1902 and she was disappointed in a custody battle for their daughter, Vera. Eight years later she would gain access to her daughter before she died later that year. Her next marriage was to William Parker Hare and it was from him that she began affixing Hare to her last name. The house they settled in on Sheridan Street is marked by a plaque installed by the Bostonian Society. Her connection to Du Bois was also notable for her involvement in the historic Niagara Movement, one of the first women in the organization. She also wrote a biography of her father. Maud died in February 1936 in Boston and a memorial service was held for her and she is buried in an unmarked grave next to her father and mother in Lakeview Cemetery, Galveston, Texas.
ACTIVITIES FIND OUT MORE The Boston Historical Society is replete with information about her phenomenal contributions. DISCUSSION More can and should be said about her aversion to several forms of African American music. PLACE IN CONTEXT From the later 19th to the early days of the 20th century Maud was actively involved in social and political movements.
THIS WEEK IN BLACK HISTORY Oct. 3, 1954: Rev. Al Sharpton born in Brownsville, N.Y. Oct. 3, 1904: BethuneCookman College launched in Daytona Beach, Fla. Oct. 4, 1940: Noted literary agent, Marie Brown, born in Philadelphia.
