Martha Broadus Anderson Winn, a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., was born in 1875 and she was raised in Washington, D.C. In 1898, she married railroad porter Henry S. Anderson.
A soprano, she studied voice, first in Washington with John T. Layton, and then at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois. She then enrolled at the Chicago College of Music and became its first black graduate when she earned a bachelor’s in music in 1908.
She taught voice in Chicago and had her hand in many local musical activities. She hosted musicales in her home. She was a soloist at Quinn Chapel AME Church, Chicago’s first Black congregation, and she was a member of the Choral Study Club. She co-founded the Coleridge Taylor School of Music in Chicago and was choir director of the Bethesda Baptist Church.
In the 1920s, she was writing for The Broad Ax newspaper. Her column was called “The Music Cabinet.” She served as an officer of the National Association of Negro Musicians.
She married Baptist minister, the Rev. John Henry Winn, and moved to Texas. There, she taught and performed. Then ty moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where Rev. Winn became pastor of the Fifth Street Baptist Church. He died in 1955. His wife served as the head of the church’s music department and she remained an active volunteer.
Martha Broadus Anderson Winn died in 1967 at the age of 91.
The Broad Ax, October 3, 1925
