Music / Civil rights & activism
E. Azalia Hackley
1867–1922 · concert soprano, choral director, educator, activist
Detroit-raised concert soprano and 'race musical missionary' who promoted music education for Black Americans; Detroit Public Library's Hackley Collection bears her name.
- Born
Murfreesboro, Tennessee- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 55- Birth name
- Emma Azalia Smith
- Also known as
- Emma Azalia Hackley · Azalia Smith Hackley
- Detroit years
- 1870s–1894, 1920s
- Field
- Music, Civil rights & activism
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Emma Azalia Smith's family fled Tennessee for Detroit in the 1870s after the Ku Klux Klan attacked her mother's school for freed people. In Detroit she studied piano, voice and violin as a child, became one of the first Black students in the city's public schools, and earned her teaching certificate in 1887. She taught at Clinton Elementary School until 1894 and sang with the Detroit Musical Society. After marrying Edwin Hackley she moved to Denver, then Philadelphia, studied in Paris with Jean de Reszke, and toured as a concert soprano. Calling herself a 'race musical missionary', she organized folk song festivals, choirs and scholarships for young Black musicians, and she mentored Florence Cole Talbert. She collapsed on stage in San Diego in 1921, was brought back to Detroit and died there in 1922. In 1943 the Detroit Public Library founded the E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts.
Highlights
- Taught at Detroit's Clinton Elementary School, 1887–1894
- Studied voice in Paris with Jean de Reszke
- Organized folk song festivals and scholarships for Black musicians
- Author of The Colored Girl Beautiful (1916)
- Detroit Public Library's Hackley Collection founded in her name in 1943
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Memorial · 1943–present
Detroit Public Library — Main Library
The Main Library houses the E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, founded in her name in 1943.
Buried here · 1922
Elmwood Cemetery
Hackley is buried in Detroit's oldest non-denominational cemetery.