Ophelia Settle Egypt
Ophelia Settle Egypt was a Howard University undergraduate in the 1920s, a time when racial segregation in Washington, D.C. was increasing. She recalls a 1925 concert slated for the newly built, 6,000-seat Washington Auditorium, where seating was to be integrated, rather than African Americans being relegated to the gallery.
Ophelia Settle Egypt (1903-1984) was born in Texas and came to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University. After graduating in 1925, she taught high school and earned advanced degrees in sociology (MA, University of Pennsylvania, 1928; MS, Columbia University, 1944; advance certificate toward PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1950). Upon returning to Washington in 1939, Egypt taught at Howard’s School of Social Work until 1951. She founded the Parklands Planned Parenthood Clinic, which was renamed for her in 1981.
Selected quotations from an interview conducted on December 9, 1970. The recording is archived in the Evolution of a Community collection.
There were some foreign women who came over, some international women's organization [International Council of Women]. And they were being entertained by the American women. And a part of this entertainment consisted in a concert at Constitution Hall [Washington Auditorium] where they were having various Black/Negro choirs.
I still say Negro a lot, because I've said it so, so many years. And one of the choirs was Hampton [University], and one was Howard. And they had other groups, you know, but they wanted to show off the American Negro, too.
Washington Auditorium was a few blocks from the White House on the corner of 19th and E Streets, NW, and housed an auditorium, exhibit hall, and meeting rooms. Photo by Harris & Ewing Photographic Studio, 1926. Courtesy of John DeFerrari.
I think it was Roy Tibbs, who was in charge of music at Howard then….When they made the arrangement, they had agreed that there would be no segregation, but, when we got there, lo and behold, we were all steered up to the balcony. And somebody got word back to Roy Tibbs.
And he asked them about it and they said, well, the seating arrangement had already been arranged. They couldn't change it then…so Roy said, well...there will be no Howard choir here.
The Washington Auditorium seated 6,000 comfortably, with unobstructed views of the stage, c. 1925. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-npcc-31723
...Nathaniel Dett was at Hampton, and he said…he had to call Hampton to get permission to take his choir away. So the Howard choir and the Hampton choir walked out and whatever other Black performers were on the program walked out too, so that left no Black program, and many of the foreign women walked right out behind us.
I think it must have been Mr. Tibbs who made the announcement to the group and apologized and told them why we were leaving. And of course, all of the Negroes in the place walked out, and the group of foreign women and some of them, a few of the American women, followed us up to Howard.
After exiting the auditorium, it likely took an hour to walk almost three miles to Howard University.
And by then, of course, it was about 10:00 o’clock….They got everybody…out of the dormitories to come over to the Chapel to sing to these foreigners, foreign women, who wanted very much to hear Negro spirituals.
African American spirituals had been popular in the nineteenth century, when the Fisk Jubilee Singers performed in highly sought-after concerts that raised funds for Fisk University. However, in the 1920s, Howard University was one of the centers shaping the Harlem Renaissance, or “New Negro” movement, which looked to Africa for inspiration.
Well, in those days, Howard didn't sing Negro spirituals. And, of course, the choir just wasn’t too good at it. Some of us weren’t either, some of the students. But most of us had heard them all our lives, and so we just started singing. And boy, we had the best time singing spirituals.
But the people who had heard the Fisk Singers sing spirituals were just embarrassed to death. They thought we just did an awful job. But we had a good time with the foreign women. It was wonderful. They talked with us. That was one of the best times I ever had at Howard. [Laughter]
So after that, Constitution Hall refused to let Negroes come in at all—I mean, refused to let Negro performers come in at all. That was why you had the Marian Anderson affair.
The Fisk Jubilee Singers, pictured here in 1875, gained national and international renown for performing African American spirituals. Ophelia Settle Egypt worked at Fisk University in the late 1920s. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. S/NPG.97.175
More than a decade later, the Daughters of the American Revolution turned down Howard University’s request to reserve Constitution Hall for a performance by world-renowned African American contralto Marian Anderson. The National Association for the Advancement of People of Color and Anderson’s manager, Sol Hurok, intervened, aided by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. On Easter Sunday 1939, Anderson sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of 75,000 people and a national radio audience in the millions.