#margaret tynes
Happy 96th (!!!) Birthday to my beautiful opera singer aunt, Margaret Tynes! She was born in Saluda, Virginia on September 11, 1919 just as race riots broke out in cities all over the United States - the “Red Summer of 1919”. She was the eighth of ten children born to Rev. Joseph W. Tynes and his wife, educator Lucy Rich Tynes. Rev. Tynes held a divinity degree from Virginia Union University at a time when most Black men were lucky to have a high school education and subsequently served as vice-president of Virginia Theological Seminary and College. He was also an an accomplished poet. Aunt Margaret had a phenomenal international career as a singer in opera, jazz and theater for over fifty years. A graduate of North Carolina A&T State University (BA 1939) and Columbia University (MA 1944), she is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She starred as Harry Belafonte’s leading lady off-Broadway in a show he produced called “Sing Man, Sing!” She also recorded a jazz suite called “A Drum is a Woman” with Duke Ellington and made several appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1961, she gained international acclaim as Salomé at the Spoleto Festival of the Two Worlds in Italy, where she lived for more than forty years. This picture was taken by the invaluable Carl Van Vechten on September 29, 1959. Photo: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
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