While perusing the John Powell collection, which contained numerous concert programs and other promotional leaflets, I came across a number of interesting findings. Having no prior knowledge of John Powell, when I reached the John Powell collection, I looked through the materials with no expectations or assumptions about who he was or what his role in music history was. The first thing that caught my eye and caused me to look through the collection more carefully was a program that highlighted a piece Powell composed: Negro Rhapsody. This immediately made me think of Florence Price’s Negro Fantasy. Was Powell of African descent? Did he write his piece inspired by spirituals, composing empathetically and faithfully based on the original tunes? I looked further through the collection and found a number of other pieces that seemed to be based on folk tunes, though no others pointed to African-American origins. At the back of the collection, there was a promotional flyer for a talk by Marcus Garvey, a famous Jamaican civil rights advocate and Black nationalist. While it is noteworthy that Garvey was an advocate for racial separation, it is curious that he ended up on Powell’s radar. What was the connection between the two men?

These are just a few questions that seek to explore Powell and his impact on music history in the 20th century and onward as a white Virginian. During the time Powell was active as a composer and performer, the country and world exhibited characteristics of nationalism, colonialism, and racism. Modernism in art was also present, and despite the societal undertones of prejudice and subjugation, modernist works of this time were often focused on the very cultures and groups Western societies worked to put down. Powell is situated in the midst of this; he clearly drew inspiration from folk styles in America and was also seemingly linked to political and societal dynamics of the time through his life as a musician. It remains to be seen how Powell fits into these ever present themes of the early 20th century.

After further research, it was clear that my initial guesses on Powell were way off the mark. He couldn’t have been more different than Florence Price. He was an ethnomusicologist, which explained the interest in American folk music, but he was a white supremacist, a segregationist, and fittingly, a Virginian through and through. I am not sure how one can be an ethnomusicologist and a racist, but white men in the 20th century found a way. Again, unsurprisingly, he was a graduate of UVA, a native of Richmond, and founded/participated in a number of anti-black associations and initiatives. His musicology extended to the people of the Appalachians, but outrightly ignored and frowned upon Black music.

Initially, I found it strange that Powell was cognizant and seemingly interested in Marcus Garvey. However, after reading more about Garvey, it was clear. Regardless of Garvey’s true sentiments, he was one of the few Black figures of the time that actually advocated for segregation. This likely caught Powell’s attention during his tour in England. Other questions I had included Powell’s connection to UVA and UVA Music specifically, how his ethnomusicologist ideologies separated white American folk music from music by people of color, and how his compositions specifically conveyed pro-white and anti-Black sentiments. However, answers to some of these questions were not readily available.

It is now clear that John Powell was a white supremacist and segregationist. This means that his piece, Negro Rhapsody, is likely not a fair tribute to African-Americans and their struggle in this country, and probably instead appropriates and puts down Black culture. Also present in the John Powell collection was a program in which Negro Rhapsody was performed, containing program notes for each piece. The program notes describe the piece in great detail, going over form, texture, instrumentation, etc. The language used was incredibly demeaning and derogatory, however. Descriptors such as “cannibalistic”, “wild”, and “barbaric” are used to describe various sections of the piece. Clearly, the composer and intended audience both agree that an accurate interpretation of Black history and culture is one that paints them out to be “savages”.

This was not the only condescending aspect of the language used in the program notes. The author of the program notes also describes the melody as “wailing” and “shrieking”, as if the theme of the piece is pathetic and animalistic, and the Black individual should be pitied as one pities a dying animal and not as a human being. Interestingly, however, the melody was based on the actual spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. While I am unsurprised that Powell knew of spirituals since he was an ethnomusicologist who specialized in American folk tunes, it is interesting that he took the time to incorporate and compose with an African-American melody. It is another example in history of white supremacists who are hilariously well-versed in the very topics that they look so down upon.

Powell’s usage of spirituals was of course in stark contrast to pieces like Negro Fantasy, by Florence Price. Price’s piece was based on the African-American spiritual Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass. She delicately interwove the original spiritual with new musical ideas, continuously tapping into the original essence and purpose of the spiritual. Price looked to renew and honor the music and the people who wrote it. She was a contemporary to Powell, and both their spiritual-inspired pieces debuted in the span of a decade. This is another example of the rocky landscape of the time. Different composers and their work were inherently at odds with but also linked by racial backdrops. In just over ten years, two very successful and societally relevant spiritual-inspired pieces were written, but with completely opposite intentions.

Do not mistake Powell’s interest in African American music for true appreciation. He purely used themes from African American spirituals for melodic and rhythmic content. He wrote these pieces and later doubled down, insisting upon his racist beliefs. Wittney Skigen writes that Negro Rhapsody gained quite a following in the public eye and media. Journalists complimented Powell’s “intense interest” in African folk music, to which Powell “consistently denied the impact of African American music” (Skigen 2018). Furthermore, it was thought that Powell often wrote the program notes for his own pieces under a pseudonym. He may have used this as another way to set the record over his true views. If the purpose of his compositions was ever unclear, he provided racially oppressive commentary in the program notes for his performances.

It must be said that Powell eventually stopped writing music that drew from the Black voice. This change does not mean that he suddenly became a white supremacist but respected Black music prior to that point. While he drew from spirituals in pieces like Negro Rhapsody, he obviously wrote to paint the Black individual as primitive and depraved, rather than paying homage to the true message of the original spirituals. It is curious that he suddenly stopped writing music like Negro Rhapsody, turning back to folk tunes from Appalachia, as well as other compositional works. A possible reason for this is that his prejudice was far too clean and proper for certain audiences. Stephanie Doktor wrote that John Powell received a death threat from the KKK. Powell “thought the Klan’s tactics were too violent and its handling of money deceptive” (Doktor 2020). He advocated for a peaceful, legislative form of white supremacy. This put him at odds with extremist groups like the KKK, which may have pushed him to publicly distance himself from any interaction with Black culture.

Marcus Garvey, on the other hand, had a more favorable relationship with the KKK. Garvey, in all his pro-segregationist glory, had established himself as quite the radical thinker. Garvey secretly met with the KKK, but it wasn’t a secret for long. PBS writes that “the ‘Garvey Must Go’ Campaign gained momentum after Garvey held a secret meeting with Edward Young Clarke, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan”. He received much backlash from other Black leaders for fraternizing with the enemy. Regardless, Garvey believed in racial separation and it gave him a shared platform with Powell and his Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America. It is a fascinating juxtaposition to have two figures such as Powell and Garvey at this time with totally different views about race but sharing common ground over the handling of race in the nation at this time. The inclusion of Garvey into Powell’s story marks a defining aspect of white supremacy at this time. Men like Powell can work with Black nationalist figures like Garvey and draw inspiration from Black music all while maintaining their hatred and superiority over people of color. It is psychologically fascinating to think about how white supremacists can partition their mind into two categories, allowing them to be relatively knowledgeable about the very people they hate, which in turn allowed them to be effective machines of persecution and oppression.

Citations

Doktor, Stephanie Delane. “How a White Supremacist Became Famous for His Black Music: John Powell and Rhapsodie Nègre (1918).” American Music, vol. 38, no. 4, 2020, pp. 395–427. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.38.4.0395. Accessed 6 Mar. 2025.

Skigen: https://segregation.virginia.edu/not-negro-tunes-at-all-john-powell-music-and-white-supremacy-i n-virginia-pavs-4500-student-paper-spring-2018/

PBS: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/garvey-must-go-campaign/