A Life’s Journey

At age thirteen, William L. Dawson ran away from home to pursue his education at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The year after he graduated, he convinced the then all-white Horner Institute in Missouri to allow him to earn his BA through one-on-one tutorial sessions. He went on to earn his Master's of Music from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.

Along the way, he directed high school and college bands and choruses and a church choir, performed in jazz bands and a symphony orchestra, and composed arrangements of spirituals and a symphony.

He was thirty-two when he returned to Tuskegee to found its School of Music. Over the next twenty-five years, he published his acclaimed Negro Folk Symphony and witnessed its world premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski; brought his chorus and Tuskegee international renown through high-profile concert tours and radio engagements; and traveled to West Africa, Cuba, Brazil, and Spain as a music researcher and cultural emissary.

Funded by the Ford Foundation and produced by Emory University’s Robert W. Woodruff Library, this online exhibition uses archival documents, rare audio/video footage, and scholarly resources to document Dawson’s childhood, education, and career. We invite you to explore the life and work of one of the most important African-American composers and educators: William Levi Dawson. Enter section >