Facebook Group: Nova Scotia - Memories of Days Gone By https://facebook/groups/NovaScotiaMemoriesOfDaysGoneBy/ Nova Scotia, Canada Portia White Portia White (June 24, 1911 – February 13, 1968) was a Canadian operatic contralto. Portia May White was born in 1911 in Truro, Nova Scotia, the third of thirteen children born to Izie Dora and William Andrew White. Her mother was a descendant of Black Loyalists, while her father was the son of former slaves from Virginia, and on his graduation from Acadia University in Nova Scotia in 1903, he became the universitys first black graduate. He later became the minister of Cornwallis Street Baptist Church in Halifax, where Izie Dora White was the musical director. White began her musical career there as a choir member at the age of six. Many members of Whites family achieved fame in Canadian cultural and political life. Her brother Bill was the first Canadian of African heritage to run for political office in Canada, standing as a candidate for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in the 1949 election, and her brother Jack was a noted Canadian labour union leader. In addition to Bills children, politician Sheila White and folk musician Chris White, Portia White was also the aunt of Senator Donald Oliver and playwright George Elliott Clarke. White entered Dalhousie University in 1929, and from the early 1930s taught in Africville, a small, sea-side community, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, largely populated by Black Nova Scotians. She won a scholarship to continue her musical training at the Halifax Conservatory in 1939 with noted Italian baritone Ernesto Vinci. Thanks Halifax Public Libraries halifaxpubliclibraries.ca/assets/files/ahmonth/african-nova-scotians.pdf JohnTWallace
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 01:23:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015