May 2, 1990 William Levi Dawson, professor, choir director, and composer, died.
Dawson was born September 26, 1899 in Anniston, Alabama. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree with honors from the Horner Institute of Fine Arts in 1925 and his master’s degree from the American Conservatory of Music in 1927. Dawson served as professor of music at Tuskegee Institute from 1931 to 1956 and during that time developed the Tuskegee Institute Choir into an internationally known ensemble.
Dawson began composing at a young age and his best known works are arrangements and variations on spirituals. His “Negro Folk Symphony” garnered attention at its world premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934. The symphony was later revised to “convey the missing elements that were lost when Africans came into bondage outside their homeland.” Dawson was honored with Wanamaker Awards in 1930 and 1931 and was given honorary doctorates by Tuskegee University in 1955 and Lincoln University in 1978. He was elected to the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity in 1977.
Keep history alive by telling that history:
Read the greatest fictionalized ‘historical novel’, Rescue at Pine Ridge, the first generation of Buffalo Soldiers. The website is: http://www.rescueatpineridge.com This is the greatest story of Black Military History…5 stars Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Youtube commercials are: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD66NUKmZPs and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVslyHmDy9A&feature=related
Rescue at Pine Ridge is the story of the rescue of the famed 7th Cavalry by the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers. The 7th Cavalry was entrapped again after the Little Big Horn Massacre, fourteen years later, the day after the Wounded Knee Massacre. If it wasn’t for the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers, there would of been a second massacre of the 7th Cavalry. This story is about, brutality, compassion, reprisal, bravery, heroism and gallantry.
You’ll enjoy the novel that embodies the Native Americans, Outlaws and African-American/Black soldiers, from the south to the north, in the days of the Native American Wars with the approaching United States of America.
The novel was taken from my mini-series movie with the same title, “RaPR” to keep the story alive. The movie so far has attached, Bill Duke directing, Hill Harper, Glynn Turman, James Whitmore Jr. and a host of other major actors in which we are in talks with.
When you get a chance, also please visit our Alpha Wolf Production website at; http://www.alphawolfprods.com and see our other productions, like Stagecoach Mary, the first Black Woman to deliver mail for the US Postal System in Montana, in the 1890’s, “spread the word”.
Peace.