IN HER ROLE as a UT Distinguished Alumna, internationally renowned mezzo-soprano and civil rights pioneer, Barbara Smith Conrad will be honored Thursday at the Texas capitol in Austin.

And what a deserved honor it will be when resolutions are read in the House and Senate chambers that morning, preceding a noon performance by the singer in the Capitol rotunda at noon.

Regrettably, a commitment to the Texas Press Association convention in Arlington Thursday will keep me from accepting the invitation I received to the Capitol honors and the reception to follow.

AS IS WELL KNOWN in this area, Barbara grew up in the Center Point community near Pittsburg, and she has many friends and admirers as well as relatives in this area. (She is the niece of the late Bruce School principal, Curtis Smith.)

Audiences here have been privileged to hear her sing several concerts at the Gilmer Civic Center, part of a career that has touched the lives of opera audiences and other music lovers around the world..

Her story tells, in its own way, as much about interracial change in this country as does the election of the first African American president. Certainly Barack Obama never encountered the kind of treatment Barbara Smith Conraf faced at the University of Texas when she enrolled there as a talented music student in the 1950s.

THE CENTER for the Study of American History at UT Austin describes the courageous behavior that has been well rewarded by her alma mater in recent years. The Center’s website explains:

“She entered UT in 1956, the first year in which African American students were admitted to the University as undergraduates. With her natural talents and stage presence, Barbara was encouraged to audition for a role in the University’s 1957 production of Dido and Aeneas. She was awarded the leading role of Dido, the Queen of Carthage, opposite a white boy as Aeneas, her lover.

“Soon after the start of rehearsals, word spread that a black girl and a white boy were to play the lead roles in a romantic opera, and Barbara’s trouble began. Ultimately, the controversy escalated to the Texas legislature, and the president of the University was advised to remove her from the cast.

“Barbara’s story was covered by national news media, prompting a carte blanche offer from Harry Belafonte to underwrite her studies at the institution of her choice. Barbara, however, chose to remain at the University. She was one of the early pioneers in the movement to create a more open and diverse university community, and her accomplishments and fortitude as a student represent an important chapter in the University’s history.

“The Texas Ex-Students’ Association named her a Distinguished Alumnus in 1985, and the University has honored her with the founding of the Barbara Smith Conrad Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Fine Arts.”

THE GEORGE Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, Huston-Tillotson University and UT Austin’s Butler School of Music sponsored “An Evening with Barbara Conrad” on Tuesday of this week, and the Museum has an archive that gives the flavor of the uproar that even a hint of integration elicited in the Texas legislature of the 1950s.

Letters to the editor to the Daily Texan, UT student newspaper, had comments such as these:

“It strikes me after reading the statements by two of our legislators in the Barbara Smith story of May 8 that there is some confusion in these gentlemen’s minds as to the true function of an educational institution.

“I would like to say that the University is not a public relations organization for this state, but rather an educational institution. And as such, gentlemen, it is its proper function to explore the expanding frontiers of interracial relations.

“The girl in question had a good voice; but this of course is not the point. We agree that the time is not quite ripe for a member of her race to take such a part. But we rejoice that soon such a casting at this University will occasion no lifted eyebrows or sneers of disapproval.”

ANOTHER, more sarcastic, writer opined:

“I was shocked to hear that a Negro was ever granted the part of Dido in the coming University opera. I was shocked because I felt sure, in my secure little way, that our wonderful fellow citizens down the street had special controlling measures to see to it that just any old Negro couldn’t participate in campus activities with us Texans. . .

“Yes, we almost sneaked by casting the best voice, we almost made a step to pull our University and our state away from the South. Thank God that we have foresighted individuals . . . in our government. They are protecting us from Communism, they are helping to make our college educations make sense, they are 100 per cent Americans.”

Barbara Conrad performed with the Metropolitan Opera for eight years, from 1982 to 1989, and has performed leading operatic roles with the Vienna State Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, and many other international opera houses around the world.

IN 1977 she played Marian Anderson in the 3-hour ABC movie Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years and in 1994 followed that performance with a European concert/recital tour commemorating the renowned contralto.

She has recorded a collection of Negro spirituals with the choir of Harlem’s Convent Avenue Baptist Church on the Naxos label.

That CD, which I’m pleased to own, includes a wonderful variety of songs, from Steal Away to Jesus!, Certainly, Lord; Wade in the Water to My Lord What a Morning and He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand. And of course, Amazing Grace.

RETURNING to her story as the UT Center for American History tells it:

“Today Barbara continues to complement her performing activities with artist residencies and master classes, establishing herself as one of the foremost builders of voice both in the U.S. and abroad. She is the co-director and co-founder of the Wagner Theater Program at the Manhattan School of Music, and maintains a private vocal studio in Manhattan.

“Barbara traces her musical roots to her family’s home in the tiny east Texas community of Center Point, where she and her siblings explored a variety of musical genres on the family piano an in their local Baptist church. It was in this community, to which she still maintains ties, that her love of the spiritual first developed.

“Barbara works closely with The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, which is the home of the University’s Endowment for the Study of American Spirituals, to preserve this important American art form.”

At 68, she deserves all the kudos that are coming her way — not least, for her magnanimous forgiveness of the 1950s racists. Without doubt, a majority of white Texans then shared the legislators’ views.

sgreene@tatertv.com

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