Opera singer a bright star
Cass County native Barbara Smith Conrad overcame prejudice to have shining career on stage
When Baylor University scholar and Linden native Ralph Wood read the New York Times’ May 24 extended obituary, he said he thought, “I know nothing about this … from our own little postage stamp of soil.”
He was referring to the passing of Metropolitan Opera star Barbara Smith Conrad, who had been born in Cass County.
She figured prominently not only in music but also in the struggle for integration at the University of Texas during her years there, 195559.
Wood could find no one from the area who knew of the story.
Here’s a digest of the obituary written May 24 by Times reporter William Grimes:
“Barbara Louise Smith was born on Aug. 11, 1937, in Atlanta, Tex., south of Texarkana. Growing up, she divided her time between Queen City, where she attended school, and the family house in Center Point, an all-black town near Pittsburg, Tex., that had been founded by freed slaves, among them her forebears. It no longer exists.
“Both her parents were college-educated teachers. Her mother was the former Jerrie Lee Cash. Her father, Conrad, served in the Army during World War II and the Korean War. When Barbara began her singing career and applied for an Actors Equity card, she took his name to avoid confusion with another Equity member with the same first, middle and last name.”
In spring 1957 at the University of Texas, the obituary continues, two weeks before the opening of Henry Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas,” Smith, a 19-year-old mezzo-soprano, received the news she would not be appearing in the lead role she had been rehearsing for months.
Smith was black. The male lead singer was white.
Joe Chapman, a Democrat in the state legislature from Smith’s own district, had taken the matter up with the university’s president, Logan Wilson, saying the opera’s casting might be bad publicity for the school and that the legislature was preparing to vote on an appropriations bill.
“Three days before the opera was scheduled to open, The Houston Post broke the story, under the headline ‘Negro Girl Out of UT Opera Cast,’” the Grimes’ obituary reported.
Some protests did occur from students and several legislators. The obituary continues: “Ms. Smith tried to smooth matters over. ‘After the first shock and hurt had passed,’ she told The Daily Texan, ‘I began to realize that the ultimate success of integration at the university is much more important than my appearance in the opera.’
“As wire services and Time magazine picked up the story, national figures spoke out, including Sidney Poitier and Eleanor Roosevelt. The singer Harry Belafonte stepped forward, offering to pay for Ms. Smith’s musical education at any school in the world.
“She chose to remain at Texas after earning her music degree in 1959. After graduating, Ms. Smith, as she was still known, went to New York, where Mr. Belafonte introduced her to his friends in the arts. Mrs. Roosevelt paid her fare.
“She then went on to a successful operatic career under the name Barbara Smith Conrad, appearing at major opera houses around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and performing in concert with leading symphony orchestras.”
Conrad died Monday, May 22, in Edison, N.J. She was 79.
Grimes writes, “She grew up singing in the town’s Baptist choir and at home, where an older brother accompanied her on the piano. She idolized Marian Anderson, the black contralto and civil rights activist, whom she later played on television in the 1977 miniseries ‘Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years.’
“In 1956, she became one of 104 black undergraduates admitted to the University of Texas for the first time. (The first black graduate students had been admitted in 1950.)
In conclusion, the obituary recounts the following:
“In the 1980s, the University of Texas approached Ms. Conrad to make amends, naming her a distinguished alumna in 1985 and a year later creating a scholarship in her name. The university’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History later produced a documentary about her life, ‘ When I Rise,’ which was broadcast on PBS in 2011.
“In 2009, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution honoring Ms. Conrad for her achievements. In return, she gave a performance of ‘Amazing Grace’ in the rotunda of the Capitol.”
Several video clips, interviews, stories and portions of Conrad singing can be found with a search of Barbara Smith Conrad on the internet.
“Barbara Smith Conrad deserves coverage for her remarkable story,” Dr. Wood said in an email of the Times’ obituary he sent to several interested people and historians in Cass County.
Born and raised in Linden, Wood is professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University.
IN HER OWN WORDS
In her own words for “The Texas Book Two: More Profiles, History and Reminiscences of the University,” Barbara Smith Conrad tells of her growing up in and around Cass County.
“I was born in Atlanta, Texas, because my parents’ work took them there when school was in session. My parents named me Barbara Louise Smith. My father, Conrad Alphonso Smith, was principal of the school in the Honey Grove and Shade Grove communities, northwest of Atlanta. My mother, Jerrie Lee Cash, was the teacher and drove the bus as well, I’m told.
“Back in Camp County, Center Point was a rural community a few miles east of Pittsburg and is where my mother was born and where my father came to school. Center Point had the first black accredited school in the state. It was a boarding school, so that was pretty exciting.
“My parents’ work took the family to live in Cass County during the week. Being the youngest, I spent most of my time in school at Queen City … I graduated from high school in Queen City.”