Azalia

A biography of the singer and educator, perhaps intended for young people. Hackley was African-American, and worked tirelessly to further young African-Americans in music careers. (The author indicated she was an early influence on Marian Anderson.).

“THIS portrait of E. Azalia Smith Hackley is intended to be nothing more than the heightening of a series of common experiences which occurred during the lifetime of one of America’s outstanding pioneers in the field of serious music, who reached her apogee at the dawn of the twentieth century. Some of these experiences I have tried to pitch high, hoping that perchance someone with a sensitivity for pitch and tonation will be listening...yes, listening with both ears; and may in this way recognize his own potentialities. It is when our minds have been made to feel the full vibrations of the lives of others that we can profit most.

So far as possible, I have tried to portray the good rather than the bad, but to include the bitter with the sweet; the failures with the successes. Otherwise, a picture of Azalia would be faulty—she with her ever changing moods and tempos.”-Introduction.