Joshua and Angela discuss the foresight and impact of composer, musicologist, arranger, and premier torchbearer of Negro spirituals, William Levi Dawson. A protege of Booker T. Washington, the life and works of Dawson score an accurate narrative of Black people during the Great Migration. His symphony illustrates the cultural links that were lost and then found as a result of the colonial world’s Global Slave Trade. Revered internationally, Dawson’s tenure and role as an educator and choral director at the historic Tuskegee University cemented his legacy as a champion of Black music.
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