Cleota Josephine Collins (September 24, 1893 — July 7, 1976) was an American soprano singer and music educator. She was one of the founding members of the National Association of Negro Musicians in 1919.
Early life Cleota Josephine Collins was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Ira A. Collins and Josie Collins. Her father was a clergyman."An Honored Pastor Gone" Ohio State Monitor (April 12, 1919): 1. via Ohio History Connection Cleota Collins studied music at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and abroad in France and Italy, as the student of Emma Azalia Hackley,Darryl Glenn Nettles, African American Concert Singers Before 1950 (McFarland 2003): 50–51. with further studies in New York."A Singer" The Crisis (April 1919): 287.
Career Cleota Collins "toured extensively".Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History (W. W. Norton 1997): 282–283, 312. In 1924 she gave educational recitals at schools in Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina."The Horizon" The Crisis (March 1924): 227. She toured southern schools again in 1936 and in 1938."Returns from Tour" The Crisis (June 1936): 170."Cleota Collins to Make Concert Tour" Chicago Defender (December 11, 1937): 3. She taught voice and piano at Florida Baptist Academy, Sam Houston College, Tuskegee Institute,"Miss Cleota Collins a Recent Visitor Here" Chicago Defender (June 25, 1938): 14. and Virginia State College in Petersburg, among other posts.Nora Douglas Holt, "Music" Chicago Defender (June 12, 1920): 10. She was one of the founding members of the National Association of Negro Musicians in 1919.Nora Douglas Holt, "Musicians Organize National Organization" Chicago Defender (August 9, 1919): 15. She operated the Lacy School of Music and was a church music director in Cleveland in the 1930s."Prominent Musician" Chicago Defender (September 30, 1933): 6. "Mrs. C. C. Lacey Music Director at Carey Church" Chicago Defender (October 10, 1931): 6.
In 1932, sculptor Henry Bannarn created a portrait bust of Cleota Collins; it was his earliest known work.Henry Bannarn, Cleota Collins (1932), Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Personal life Cleota Collins married George Corinth Lacy, a lawyer, in 1917.Who's who in Colored America, Volume 6 (1942): 310. She married William Johnson Trent Sr., the president of Livingstone College, as his fourth wife, in 1953."Collins, Trent Vows Spoken" Carolina Times (July 4, 1953): 3. via North Carolina Newspapers"College Prexy, Socialite Wed" Chicago Defender (June 27, 1953): 1. She may have married a third time, as her grave marker is for "Cleota Collins Moore." She died in 1976, aged 83 years, in Pasadena, California. Her gravesite is in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery.Funeral Announcements, Los Angeles Times (July 9, 1976): 46. via Newspapers.com
References
External links Cleota Collins Moore's gravesite on Find a Grave. A 1921 photograph of Nora Douglas Holt, Cleota Collins Lacey, Portia Evans, Clarissa Hardy, Estelle E. Pinkney, Camille L. Nickerson and Gussie Rue Harris, Beinecke Library, Yale University.