Hello everyone toward inclusive Excellence is excited to share another great interview with you with an outstanding scholar in honor of black music month I’m Alexia Hudson ward editorinchief of toward inclusive Excellence this episode is a conversation with Dr federa Hadley an ethnomusicology professor in the department of music history at the
Juliard school her core research considers how people of African descent use music genres to construct and maintain Community Dr Hadley earned an undergraduate degree from Florida A&M University a master’s of Art in African-American studies from Clark Atlanta University and a PhD in ethn music ology from Indiana University
Among her many exciting projects are exploring how HBCU musical legacies influenced the broader cultural landscape and Illuminating the life of Shirley Graham Duo a hidden musical figure who left a remarkable Legacy in Ghana and was the second wife of scholar and intellectual web Deo now on to our conversation with Dr federa Hatley federa thank you so much for joining us for what I know is going to be a great conversation indeed I’m happy to be here thank you for having me you’re welcome and and for those who are listening you can’t see what feder and I have on in
Terms of our background um and what I’m wearing today for a shirt where for those who will view this podcast on YouTube we literally did not plan to both wear orange you know but it just it just work it worked itself out great minds think alike indeed indeed a really
Uplifting and and fun color so thank you again so my first question to you is you know what influence U your decision to pursue and ultimately earn a doctorate degree in ethnomusicology that’s such a great question and there are two parts to that answer the first part came when I was
Very young not very young but I was like a teenager my mom is a retired English literature Professor so I grew up in a house of books also she was a Church musician so of music as well so those the world of ideas and the world of
Music have always coexisted in my life and my mom took me to a book sale like a used book sale and I found a copy of a book called Blues people by Leroy Jones later Mary baraca and I read it ravenously and and that was a turning
Point for me because I didn’t know that people wrote about black music this world that I lived in and church with my friends and all of this I didn’t know that people were thinking about it and theorizing about it in that way um and so that stuck with me I didn’t know the
Word ethn musicology yet but that planted a seed in my mind again my mom as an English Professor so we had all these books in the house um from the Harlem Renaissance from the Black Arts Movement and so much of the Poetry of the Black Arts Movement especially was
Musical The Poetry of haki maab booody Nikki Giovani Leroy Jones all of these people Sonia Sanchez it just had this real musical quality to me um and so that sort of stayed with me as well and then later I did a master’s degree at Clark Atlanta University and
African-American studies and when you go into cultural studies that can mean any number of things that can mean people who are interested in health disparities criminal justice reform education um and I realized then while all of those things are really important the one piece I felt in compelled to
Lean further into um and I felt equipped to lean further into was music like really thinking about black music what that meant why I find it so evocative and Powerful why it feels like this seminal thread in my life and while I was working on my Master’s Degree I
Talked to one of my old professors from FAMU Florida and then where I went to undergrad um Dr dere Derek Williams and he he was like you sound like you want to be an ethnomusicologist that was the first time I heard the word I’m out of undergrad in graduate school and he was
The first person to mention that word to me and then he told me that there was a scholar named porsa mby um who was also a black woman from Florida just like I am who is like the preeminent scholar in EO musicology and African-American music
Um and then I went and I stalked her and everything that she ever wrote and I was like it was like somebody just opened up this glorious new world to me of what scholarship could be and what possibilities existed and very long story short fortunately I ended up she
Was um she’s now Professor Emer at Indiana University so long story short I ended up studying with her as my advisor at Indiana University wow wow what a great story story you know and shout out to your mother you know from an English lator major and just knowing how having that
Type of material in the household can plant seeds of potential and also shout out to the professor you know that said to you how about this you know because I had a similar story with a a faculty member African American woman historian um when I was at Temple University said
Would you ever consider Library science you know and I was like what’s that you know so I really appreciate and can relate to that story and for those who don’t know what exactly ethnomusicology is or what particularly that discipline is could you give us an overview of what exactly um the
Discipline entails sure ethn musicology is the study of music as culture How We Do music um how music helps us to understand who we are are as individuals as groups that group can be a family that group can be a culture it can be a generation it can be a church or a
Synagogue it can be a neighborhood there’s so many different ways to think about who the group is isn’t only about cultural or racial lines but really um thinking about who we are musically using technology on Tik Tok these are the kinds of questions that ethn musicologists are really interested in
Idea of music is social practice something that we generally do together or for each other in some kind of way we’re trying to always just think about why is it compelling why is it meaningful to the people who are doing it if you think about it making music is
A completely you know on one level extraneous thing that that humans do we don’t need it to do it to live like we do we need to eat we need to sleep and all of that but we kind of do need to do it to live uh there is something that we
Would identify as musical in just about every culture every segment of the world and of society so why do humans feel so compelled to engage a musical activity and what does that say to us um I think we’re always as ethn musicologist kind of nodding towards the universal but
Really grounded in the specific and so uh we like to be like anthropologists and go out and do fieldwork and hang out and make music with the folk and all of that um and we do historical research we do archival research we do digital uh ethnography all of those things um and
So very often the ethn musicologist at a university is teaching courses on world music or non-western musics very often um but yeah that’s kind of what we do in that show great yeah thank you so much for that that was really um incred an incredible review of what I think is
Such a dynamic and interesting field and interesting profession and so thank you so much so some of your research F Dara centers upon the diverse musical legacies and impacts of historically black colleges and universities which are often referred to as HBCU so would you discuss your research with our audience and describe how
HBCU musical legacies influence the broader cultural landscap sure um I feel like every answer to my question somehow goes back to my childhood um which is to say that I am who I’ve always been but um again there are two parts to this answer I come from
A family that was profoundly shaped by black colleges and HBCU my parents met an HBCU at Florida andm University um my mother was a professor there my father had been an administrator there my grandparents are my father father side got an award for putting so many children through FAMU when I graduated
He got my grandfather got another award for putting so many grandchildren through FAMU most of my black teachers Girl Scout leaders were all black college grads growing up in Florida and so these are institutions that have been in my life always um suffice it to say
And I also grew up in a house where if the fist Jubilee singers or the Howard University concert choire was coming to town we were going to go hear them sing Negro spirituals we were going to do that but we also were going to go see the marching vans that came to town
Florida A&M’s I’m biased we have the best marching band where they came to town we go see them as well and so I had all these experiences HBCU in a lot of ways are just have been um a part of the oxygen in my life I’m a two-time HBCU
Alum undergrad and master’s degree but it wasn’t until I got to Overland where you and I met and I was teaching a course um on African-American music and I really wanted to understand the legacy of black graduates from Overland Conservatory what they had contributed to the world in the early late 19th
Early 20th century and I realized that so much of black music incubated on historically black college campuses and so we would not have the Negro spirituals if it hadn’t been for those teenagers those very young people who made up the fist Jubilee singers we would not have that entire repertoire of
Music or one time I was watching a fraternity do their new member presentation I realized the song as they were singing is actually a work song and I was like this is a historical genre of music that folks are singing on the yard and so HBCU represent really important
Areas of preservation of black music um as well as innovation in black music you have so many um two of of James Brown’s closest musical collaborators Mao Parker and Fred Wesley are HBCU alums Fred Wesley graduated from Alabama A&M and I think Macio Parker from North Carolina
ENT and so these these campuses which I frame as important islands of Refuge for young black people where racism doesn’t have to be is not generally the predominant thing with which they need to be concerned because the ecosystem itself is predominantly black the professors the janitors the administrators the
Students the music then shows us what is possible when these young black people and their teachers come together um on these islands of Refuge these Havens I always say HBCU are Havens not Heavens but they’re Havens and look at the full range of musical practice that happens on these campuses everything from the
Parties to the spirituals to the hymns that fraternities and sororities things to uh all of it is imbued with this community ethos that enriches the music both on those campuses and Beyond those campuses and so I wanted I am writing a text that just points us towards that there’s a
Tremendous amount of research that needs to be done but I just want to orient us towards the fact that when we see that a composer taught at a HBCU or graduated from HBCU the great lantin price is a HBCU grad that isn’t a footnote that is a pivotal juncture where usually
Foundational musical training exposure uh Community bonding happens and those rituals those musics filter out into the broader black community and into American Music yes thank you so much for that I remember you reflecting on some of this when I was viewing your remarks in the PBS special in which you were
Interviewed by Henry Lewis Gates um the black church and how the HBCU imprints you know there there’s a it’s a corollary between what has happened and that educational experience and ultimately the musical DNA that now infuses the country and you raise a really important point that I want to
Expand upon um federa around the footprint of the HBCU and it not kind of being a footnote right um and and really recontextualizing that you know for our listeners you know and others to think about the ways in which I think frankly HBCU have been historically marginalized
Um within this nation and yet you know look at the product look at the ways in which these institutions have not only contributed to every profession you know in a really profound way but is really a part of the cultural ecosystem of this nation can you talk a little more about
That yes HBCU the majority of them are founded in the late 19th century during the era reconstruction although you have Cheney which was founded in the 1830s and you have some founded in the 20th century the bulk come 1866 up through the 1890s and you know at the core there
Segregationist projects um a lot of them are because a lot of them are founded by white religious institutions and white benefactors who believe that black people newly emancipated black people should have some type of education but not go to the colleges we already had um which were admitted white students
Notable exception being an Overland College found in 1833 but black people kind of don’t care they’re clamoring for Education they understand the power of education and how they can transform one’s life right and so over the 150 year plus that we’ve had them um they have become institutions that black people have
Embraced as their own right um they see them as um institutions that have made life possible for them my grandparents none of my grandparents had a high school diploma most of them didn’t finish elementary school but the fact that they could go my parents could go to a historically black college and my
Aunts and uncles transform the trajectory of our family and so you can’t overstate what access to education has done for so many black Americans and even even now in the 21st century the percentage of black college students who go to HBCU is something in the single digit maybe seven or
Eight% yet HBCU still and there’s over a hundred of these schools still today um HBCU HBCU still overproduce the number of black teachers black pharmacists black phds black doctors black lawyers black Engineers um any of these professional ranks to which one looks HBCU have disproportionately contributed graduates into those ranks and what I
Think that points to are all of the intangible things that happen on these campuses for young black people um over and over again you hear stories of young black people who barely got into college whether it’s taloo or Bon cookman or Howard or whever but what was imparted
Into them and what was made possible for them shifted the trajectory of their life and now they’re going to graduate school now they’re a teacher in an elementary school and so I think we should never uh take for granted the the ongoing existence of HBCU because to me
It’s kind of miraculous that we still have them um because they have been such a powerful engine of creating black Community black um economic stability black professional ranks and it must be said that HBCU continue and have since their Inception fought threats of um being closed being destroyed uh physical
Violence being chronically underfunded Forbes ran a story in the last year so talking about how like North Carolina &t has been underfunded by billions right compared to their peer institution in the state yet and still North Carolina ENT is one of our most important pipelines for black engineers
And black graduates in the state of North Carolina and so um In This Moment especially since the the deaths of George Floyd and Banna Taylor HBCU have been a beneficiary of you know a lot of this money that is suddenly now flying around um but I think we should always
Be vigilant about protecting and V ating uh for the uh going concern of historically black colleges yes particularly when we think about higher education’s role in shaping definitions of citizenry in shaping what is culture and how culture is illuminated and celebrated right like we cannot ever take our attention off of
The fact that this important you know Gathering of institutions have been so principal in the forward movement of a lot of the activities of this nation and and is really a part of the nation’s DNA you know so I I appreciate that and it is with appreciation that you have you
Know really iterated on that for us thank you so fed I want to Pivot a little bit about one of your very interesting transatlantic research projects and I know that it entails studying and Illuminating the life of Shirley Graham deoy who I consider to be a phenomenal musical hidden figure and
So in what ways did archives and libraries play a critical role in fostering your work on Shirley Graham de boys you may not know this about me but I’m the biggest fan of archist archives and libraries I love I would have never had I would have never had guessed that
You know just it totally went over my head I love them I love I feel like whenever I get to go in an archive it’s like going on a treasure hunt and you find all of these things that you were looking for and all of these jewels that
You didn’t know that you were looking for um and so let me say that I I am a huge fan of digging through archives going to archives and so with Shirley Graham de boys that also goes back to Overland where um in preparing that lecture about late 19th and early 20th
Century Overland graduates I knew her name and I knew that she had gone to Overland but I didn’t know the breast and scope of her incredible life right um and it was in the archive where I pulled her student file and I began learning about her time
At Oberland and she was an older student when she came to Oberland she had already divorced her husband and had two children and studied in Paris and lived life before she came to Overland but it’s at Overland where she writes her 1932 Opera tomt right and I start
Piecing together like wait a minute there is so much here to know about this woman and I felt robbed because no one at overin or anywhere else had told me about this exceptional woman who in her one lifetime had been an activist a biographer a
Composer she had worked with the na CP a playright an internationalist a confidant of kwami and kruma the first president of Ghana she lived in Egypt like she just her life felt very cinematic to me and I got the first glimpses of that at overin
Where I I looked in the archive in the arch of his name his name is Ken and I’m forget yes Kim yeah yeah he was so generous and just like pulling things for me and all of that um and so I got glimpses of this woman and oberin in the
Archive also had the Master’s thesis that she wrote at overin um called africanisms and modern music where she is tracing these retentions from of musical retentions from North Africa and West Africa and Carmen the Opera Carmen by Bay she’s looking at it in jazz she’s looking at it in the Symphonies of
Florence William Dawson and William Grant still all who had major orchestral premieres around the time she’s writing the thesis which was in 1934 and so I was completely enraptured and in awe of who she was what she the possibilities of life that she represented and all of that started in the
Archives yeah isn’t that incredible and please share also that she’s who she is the wife of and some of the other imprints that she has left um in the nation of Ghana she was extremely proud to be the wife of Dr WB de boy she was a
Lot of people credit her for extending his life because she took yes such good care of him often served as his surrogate um at different meetings including that of like the panafrican conference and all of those things she would be be a a very worthy and capable
Surrogate for him she helped to raise money for his federal trial um she was just extraordinary she was a a mother figure to Malcolm X um and so in the country of Ghana she they lived there in the late 1950s early 1960s at a time where this is a brand new nation
Founded in 1957 kwami and kruma the first president also a HBCU graduate he had graduated from Lincoln University and he had been awe of WB de boys and he understood that having a strong Allegiance with black Caribbean in intelligencia as well as black American intelligencia was foundational to
Helping this Young Nation get off the ground and so they arrived in Acra the capital in a moment where Maya Angelou is there and so many others are there trying to see what is possible for black people um if we all sort of come together now that had very complicated
Results but surely Graham du booys was right in the thick of all of that becoming the director of Ghana’s Ghana television their first television network right right and really pioneering the idea an anti-colonial idea that programming should not just be in English but it should be in people’s
Local languages so that they can hear themselves and see themselves reflected on the national television channel of the country and so she was truly a revolutionary in so many ways and um I her I feel like when I go to Ghana especially now that Ghana’s in this this
This other moment of welcoming the diaspora into the country I feel like I always hear Echoes of what she was advocating for she and WB the boys and others were advocating for in Ghana in 2023 as well absolutely and just to situate this for our listeners and viewers to just
Give them some perspective of the dynamicism of this woman that you’re doing so much incredible research on so she was referred to as the Director if you will of Ghana’s national television station so basically folks she founded Ghana’s equivalent to CNN exactly um which is just like on top of like
Writing music and on top of you know being a diplomat and on top of you know really opening and expanding this notion of dasp Stan study right she went ahead and founded G’s version of CNN it’s like okay I can do that too because why not
On top of because why not right the magazine that she worked on with Paul Robinson his wife isanda Robinson Freedom W like it was just really important to her to be among people communicating ideas continuing to show us what is possible why can’t we um and
So I take a lot of inspiration from that I think a lot when we think about the early 20th century we think about understandably the limitations of black life the the the limitations of segregation opportunities that weren’t available and hers is certainly an exceptional life it’s not the life of
Most people at that time black or white but it is there’s something really uh remarkable to me to see such a sprawling big life of a black woman born in the late 19th century and she died in the 1970s who had a life that you know traversed continents and had all of this
Intrigue and all of these chapters and all of these phases there’s something really tremendously um just inspirational about that to me about her in particular yeah absolutely and you know for there I I remain surprised that in my mind she remains a hidden figure
And why do you think that so like had it not been for your research and partnership with Tama Nunley who has also been a guest of for toward inclusive Excellence podcast you know had it not been for you all’s partnership you know I I still feel like
She would have remained hidden in the archives in plain sight right so why do you think that’s the case so part of that I think is because she was a communist and she was a very proud and much like Paul robon um she was very clear about her Politics on on communism
And that she was a member of the Communist party and so that gave her notoriety throughout her life and I just feel like in in in her life she became very well known like and and so she was famous in a moment and then I think after she passed away and this happens
With women too when men when when powerful and famous men die often it is the wife who become the caretakers of their legacy and ensure that their names remain known right yes um that is not often done for women who are famous and influential and so she had two sons one
Who had passed away and another son David who did what he could to kind of keep her in our domain but she didn’t have um cheer leaders and caretakers in the same way that men often have and so she Withers into becoming only the wife
Of just just the second wife of and I don’t diminish her role as wife at all because she was very proud of that but you know you lose the richness of her life the expansiveness of her life um when she herself becomes just this footnote to a great man so I would say
That too and some ways her proximity to such a looming influential figure of like WB de Boys cast a shadow over her own life I mean WB the boys is one of the greatest sociologists that America has ever produced and so surely people assume there can’t be two luminaries in
That household but they absolutely were when they moved to New York he had no money because of everything that was going on with his Federal cases she was she was the one with the resources that floated them that bought their gorgeous home in Brooklyn and all of and she had
Just as many social connections and all of these things um as he did and so it’s been a joy to work with people like Tama Nunley who’s now at Cornell with you with ag Miller to really um restore her to her rightful place yes no and and
Thank you so much for your leadership in that because it’s interesting you know and especially now in the modern era and I don’t want to Veer too much into a critique of what people refer to as the manosphere and yeah the woman of spere and the woman is so spere right but when
We have these conversations about coupling it always to me feels like there’s this idea that one has to rise and the other has to be diminished for the prominent person’s rise right that there can’t be collocation and this idea of a power couple who is really committed to this
Justice work and I think that that’s also the contribution that you and Tama and others give to our understanding of relationships right yes in the ways in which you know this woman that has this amazing musical Legacy this amazing social justice Legacy in partnership with a husband that has an amazing
Historical Legacy an amazing social justice legac that those two Powers could come together to advance the cause the diasporan cause is just is a remarkable yet I think still you know we still have opportunity to fulfill more gaps in that story without a question yes I couldn’t agree more I couldn’t
Agree more WB Divo knew exactly who he married he knew she was a for totally they had he had known her she had known him her entire life um and so he was very clear who he was marrying and we have no indication that he in any way
Ever tried to censure her diminish her right so why would we right that’s what I’m left with right no absolutely and that she as you had earlier said she was an adult learner who had children when she decided to go to school to pursue you know to be in a conservatory which
In and of itself O’s Conservatory which in and of itself is a highly intensive educational experience right like it’s not like I’m just going to take a couple classes in music take a couple classes and music that I’m interested in hang out is not how a conservatory not all
Not at all is is a demanding rigorous course of study and she stayed and you know the title of her biography by Gerald horn is race woman and she truly was that she stayed because at Overland and did a master’s degree in history precisely because she felt that black
People the race of black people needed a trained musicologist and so she was always thinking about how her work what she was doing poured black back into black community and black people that is the through line in her life and that is also why I think she and WB de Boyce
Were so well aligned because they made choices and wrote things and created things that affirm that fundamental belief and what she calls the potentialities of the Negro like she she holds that sacred to for herself as he did as well yeah yeah absolutely this has been such a great conversation I
Talking to you for days but we we don’t have days right so not yet um so I am really interested and I know I can imagine that our viewers and listeners are as well f what’s on the horizon with you for your research what interesting Pro I know one but what interesting
Projects are you working on so the main project is wrapping up my book I’ll make me a world which is the book looking at um HBCU musical Legacy so I’m excited about that and everything that I’m doing now is in some way shape or form an extension of that and so I’ve been
Really fortunate to work with the great Meto soprano Denise Graves and her uh Foundation the Denise gra Foundation where she has started a program called shared voices that matches Conservatory singers with HBCU singers because each of them have knowledges that should be shared between them um and so it’s been
Very fulfilling to this was we’re finishing up the inaugural year of that program so it’s been very fulfilling to take this research that I’ve done and been writing about and thinking about and finding ways to make it actionable and so um I’m really you know with the
Book I’m really just advocating for like a subfield of HBCU music studies and so that’s where bulk the bulk of my energy is going and when I’m not doing that I’m gardening and just trying to catch my breath absolutely Hobbies matter you know that’s a whole other dis you know
Around self-care and everything else is you know we got to also situate that with all of the amazing work that you’re involved in I’m glad that you’re finding um continuous time to do gardening too that’s really wonderful yes federa thank you so much this was such a great
Conversation thank you so much for your time thank you so much for having me you know anything you ask me to do I’ll figure it out well I appreciate you because I I literally know that you’re you’re Globe trotting and involved in so many wonderful project so we appreciate
You prioritizing us thank you so much Indeed thanks for listening to our interview with Dr federa Hadley sign up to receive our newsletter follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcasts that are available on most podcasting platforms be Well
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