The mention of Tom was brief and portrayed him as a sideshow attraction with little musical ability. Southall’s initial discovery of “Blind Tom” came in a textbook on African American composers while she was working at the University of Iowa. Southall’s wide-ranging academic interests are evident throughout the collection, but the project that occupies most of the series is her three-part biography of a blind piano prodigy born into slavery named “Blind Tom” Wiggins. She was a professor at South Carolina State University and the University of Minnesota, where she taught for twenty years and was one of the founding faculty members of the African American Studies department.įor this collection, I took on Southall’s research and writing files. A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Southall earned her PhD in Piano Performance and Music Literature from the University of Iowa. For the past few months, our team has been working with the collection of papers and materials of musician and educator Geneva Southall.
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