6 Lamat
Yellow Rhythmic Star
I frequent Beauty
As my Duty and my
Due
As Honey
To the Bee –
Beauty be
Much more to me.
©Kleomichele Leeds
Harriet Gibbs Marshall
Harriet Gibbs Marshall (1868 – February 21, 1941) was a Canadian-born African-American musician, writer, and educator best known for opening the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression in 1903 in Washington, D.C,
Early years and education
Born in Victoria, British Columbia, Harriet Aletha Gibbs was the daughter of Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, a lawyer in Little Rock, Arkansas, who became the first African-American city judge in the United States, and the former Maria Ann Alexander, a school teacher. Gibbs was born in Canada because her father, along with hundreds of others, left California during the Gold Rush because of the race badges they were forced to wear, and moved en masse to Victoria. Harriet had one sister, Ida Alexander Gibbs.
In 1889, Gibbs became the first African-American woman to graduate from Oberlin Conservatory with a degree in music.
Biography and work
Early years
In the last years of the 19th century, Gibbs began appearing in newspapers in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in October and December 1889, teaching music as Hattie A. Gibbs. By 1891, she founded the music program at Eckstein Norton University in Cane Springs in Bullitt County, Kentucky. In 1894 Gibbs played at a recital in Little Rock, Arkansas before an integrated audience. In September 1898 Gibbs, now called Harriet, returned to St. Paul, also appearing in Minneapolis, and was fundraising for a conservatory. In December she appeared in Pensacola, Florida.
Washington, DC
In 1900 Gibbs began to appear in Washington, D.C. newspapers, noted as the first colored graduate of Oberlin. She offered recitals in January 1902 which garnered praise. She was well received at the Bethel Literary and Historical Society, a prominent African-American institution of DC. She took the position of a music supervisor in the segregated African-American public schools.
Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression
In the Fall of 1906 advertisements for the Conservatory began calling it the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression with 14 faculty members. Newspaper coverage in and beyond DC of the new year noted its history to 1903, that it now had more than 600 students since its founding, and reviewed the faculty in some depth - including staff that would later be officers of the institution as well as her husband. In 1909 Marshall's sister Ida Gibbs Hunt, now noted as the wife of a US Consul to France, stayed with Marshall for the winter as well as their father. In 1910 Illinois federal Representative Martin B. Madden handed out the diplomas for the graduates of the Conservancy. Several columns of the Washington Bee covered the event.
Marshall joined Gregory and Cook's wife Coralie from Howard and a faculty member of the Conservatory, in the Bahá'í Faith in 1912, while Cook remained friendly to the religion. Marshall hosted Bahá'í events at the Conservatory. In September Marshall took a trip in the West again, this time including Chicago and Detroit. That winter Marshall again vacationed in New York, and the Conservancy produced Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado in the Howard Theater. That spring the Conservatory produced a commencement performance where most of the compositions were from the pupils themselves many of whom were colored.
In July 1915 Marshall's father, Judge Mifflin W. Gibbs, died at the age of 93. Process of the inheritance took until 1922.
An October 1915 production of The Star of Ethiopia by W. E. B. Du Bois that presented black history was held in the American League Park – Marshall was among the many who contributed to the music production value of the event via its committee on music. In August 1916 Marshall produced a program on "Negro Folk Songs" at Langston High School in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In 1917 Marshall and Gregory were mentioned giving some scholarships.
In 1919 Marshall signed a letter of Bahá'ís hoping that `Abdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, could come back to the West, (recalling the 1910-1913 trips.) In 1920 Marshall began a campaign to raise funds for a national conservancy which would include negro music. In April 1921 the Conservancy produced a program for a fundraiser that covered periods of "negro music and drama" in New York. Marshall returned to the pursuit of a national conservancy in April 1922, calling together various leaders in black music and a followup production of the "negro music and drama" was scheduled for May. Walter Damrosch was listed as specifically supporting the idea of the national conservatory. A Conservancy student recital followed in May. Broader recognition of respect for negro music was summarized including Marshall's work in 1922. Marshall was approaching having something for a national conservancy set up in New York by May 1924, but instead she went to Haiti with her husband's work, making a brief return trip in August.
Haiti
Marshall traveled to Haiti from the mid-1920's when her husband, Captain Marshall of the United States Army, was appointed to a commission to investigate abuses during the United States occupation of Haiti.
During their time in Haiti, the Marshalls were excluded from participation in social activities with other U.S. military officers because of racial segregation. There were occasional trips back to the US such as September-October 1925, and returned by February 1927. Marshall became active with Haitian organizations like Haitian Brotherhood, and was Vice-President of the Organization of Haitian Women. While there, she co-founded the Jean Joseph Industrial School, and held fundraisers for it in the States. Louis G. Gregory thanked Marshall for her letter of introduction for his Bahá'í pioneering to Haiti in 1934 and credited her as a pioneer for the religion ahead of him.
When they returned to the United States, the Marshalls founded the Save Haiti Committee to lobby President Herbert Hoover to remove U.S. soldiers from Haiti. In 1930 Marshall published The Story of Haiti: from the discovery of the island by Christopher Columbus to the present day.
Later years
In 1932, Marshall contributed a poem Brotherhood published in the Bahá'í news magazine Star of the West. By 1934 Marshall was acknowledged as director of the Conservancy again.
In 1936, Marshall wrote the script for The Last Concerto, a musical spectacle based on the life, love, and music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. In 1939 Marshall was among four artists honored at the National Association of Negro Musicians.
Marshall died on February 21, 1941, in Washington, D.C. She bequeathed all her inheritance to the Washington Conservancy.*
LAMAT
Kin 188: Yellow Rhythmic Star
I organize in order to beautify
Balancing art
I seal the store of elegance
With the rhythmic tone of equality
I am guided by my own power doubled.
Once one learns to control one's thoughts, it is important to understand what is involved in the construction of the images of the world. The senses create various mental images.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Manipura Chakra (Limi Plasma)
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