Shirley Graham Du Bois

Shirley Graham Du Bois (Indianapolis, 1896 – Beijing, 1977) was an American composer, playwright and biographer whose work lies at the intersection of classical music, the theatre and the writing of African American themes. The daughter of a Black minister, she first trained in piano, organ and singing, and went on to direct the choir of her father's church.

When her first husband, Shadrach T. McCanns, died in 1924, leaving her with two young children, she widowed and continued her education at institutions as varied as the Sorbonne, Howard University, Columbia University, Morgan State College and Oberlin College, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1934 and her master's the following year. During her time at Oberlin she composed the opera Tom-Tom, whose premiere in Cleveland in 1932, with the baritone Jules Bledsoe, attracted national attention. She then taught at Tennessee A & I State College and directed the Black unit of the Federal Theatre in Chicago, for which she wrote the opera Little Black Sambo.

With a Rosenwald Fellowship she studied creative writing at Yale between 1938 and 1940, and from then on devoted herself mainly to writing. In 1951 she married W.E.B. Du Bois. Her legacy is associated with the pioneering presence of an African American woman in the opera and musical theatre of her time, although her catalogue is little known today.