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Second of two parts about music festivals in the early black community in High Point.

Up until the 1940s, National Music Week and the annual music festival offered colored school students, as well as their parents, a chance to enjoy the art of communicating through music. These two annual events slowly began to disappear from the landscape throughout the ’40s.

The third annual music festival was held on Sunday, May 12, 1940, in the William Penn High auditorium before a capacity crowd. Participants were Fairview Street School, Leonard Street School, William Penn, the Community Concert Band, the Marion Anderson Chorus and guest violinist, Thomas Paige , a student at Winston-Salem Teachers College.

The program included Paige, “O Solo Mio” by Capua; Leonard Street School Chorus accompanied by Paige, “Ave Maria”; William Penn Senior Choirs, “The Hallelujah Chorus”; Marian Anderson Chorus, “Hear De Lambs a Crying”; William Penn Junior Chorus, “None But the Lonely Heart”; first grade of Fairview and the third grade of Leonard Street, “Welcome Sweet Springtime” and “Hark to the Mandolin”; Community Concert Band, two selections.

Gracye Yokely supervised the program with the assistance of Marie Sneed, Magolia Hart, Julia Hall, Janie K. Williams, Dahla Ingram, W.B. Steele and William Penn Principal Sam Burford.

The description given of the fourth annual musical of 1941 refers to it as an annual festival celebrating National Music Week. I guess the wording back in 1939 led me to believe they were doing away with the National Music Week and holding an annual music festival instead. Doesn’t matter what they called it; it was still a yearly cultural event that students, teachers and members of the community enjoyed.

On May 4, 1941, the musical departments of Leonard Street School, Fairview Street School, and William Penn High came together to showcase their progress since the musical festival of 1940.

The William Penn Girls Octet and the Boys Chorus combined their singing talents and tackled some difficult pieces, such as “Lord Our God Have Mercy” and “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho.” The octet presented “Morning” and “The Lord’s Prayer.” Burford introduced his newly formed boys’ chorus, which performed “Petition” and “Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.”

Those who never attended William Penn High during Burford’s long tenure as principal couldn’t begin to appreciate how much this man loved the arts. He would organize a singing group at the drop of a hat. After getting caught breaking one of Burford’s many unwritten rules, I was given a choice of picking up paper for a month or donning a little red bow-tie, white shirt, black pants, and singing out of tune. I chose singing out of tune.

Fairview Street’s Boys Choir, with its sopranos, added a special touch to the singing of “The Beautiful Blue Danube” and “Stars of the Summer Night.” The Leonard Street Chorus sang “By the Bend of the River,” and the William Penn seventh-graders sang the love song “Ciribiribin” by composer Alberto Pestalozza.

Organized just seven months before the festival, the bands from the three schools showed just how much they had progressed during those months. The three bands played separate numbers and then combined for “Now the Day Is Over.” Student soloists were John Lovett, clarinet; Margaret Williams, clarinet; Matthew Jackson, baritone horn; and Frank Strickland, trumpet.

Gracye Yokely, the schools’ supervisor of music, directed the program and was assisted by teachers Marie Sneed, Callie Holmes, Mary Williams and Magolia Hart of Fairview Street; Julia Hall and Dahla Ingram of Leonard Street; and Penn students Wava Robinson and Catherine Chamber.

Just as I noticed a difference in the reporting of baseball, girls basketball and May Day in the “News of Interest to Colored People,” another long-standing tradition was about to slowly disappear, and no one knows why.

Instead of announcing that the event would happen weeks in advance and following up with four or five paragraphs of specific details after the event, the only thing reported regarding the 1942 annual music festival was similar to the following:

“Fifth Annual Music Festival — The observance of National Music Week by the High Point colored schools will culminate with a joint program which will be given at the William Penn H.S. auditorium May 3 at 3:30 p.m. The festival will include instrumental and vocal groups from Leonard Street, Fairview Street, and William Penn H.S.”
In 1943, reporting of the music festival was again skimpy, and it is once again called the annual music festival, which lets us know they were one in the same.

Information reported for the 1943 music festival was basically the same as 1942, plus the announcement that the 27-piece William Penn band would make an appearance.

In 1944, the announcement of the National Music Week celebration, which was May 7-14, outlined event locations that had never been brought forth. The William Penn auditorium was not the only location for the 1944 celebration and perhaps as far back as 1936. Maybe some of the reporters were more interested in the big extravaganza that culminated at William Penn each year rather than events at the other two schools during the week.

In 1944 observances were reported to have taken place at Fairview Street May 9 and May 11 and at Leonard Street May 10 and May 12. On May 14, all three schools came together for their combined annual music festival at William Penn.

After 1945, I could not find any more information regarding National Music Week or the annual music festival. Once again another annual tradition just disappeared.

What happened? Did this tradition resurrect itself under another name? If you know the answers, please share them with me.

Glenn Chavis researches and writes about High Point’s black history. Contact him at Storytime40@aol.com