Eileen Southern and the Music of Black Americans

Eileen Southern and the Music of Black Americans is a digital exhibit centered on Eileen Jackson Southern (1920-2002), an extraordinary scholar whose landmark book The Music of Black Americans (W. W. Norton, 1st edition 1971) inspired the academic subfield of Black music studies. In 1976 Southern became the first African American woman tenured in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In both research and teaching, she confronted racial and gender biases, yet she persistently pursued the work she believed in. The exhibit highlights archival materials from the collection that Southern left to the Harvard University Archives, and it introduces visitors to Southern’s life and legacy.