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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Hey NFB Family and Friends,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Please read and enjoy day 25 of Black History Month.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I want to tell you about a blind, black businesswoman rarely remembered outside of Indiana. Her name is Mary Fitzhugh. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Mary was born about 1880 in Missouri. At the age of 15, she became blind through an unknown accident. Some records indicate she was educated at a mission school in her youth. In 1898, she became a student at the Missouri Institution for the Education of the Blind where she excelled at music, yet because she was black, there is no mention of her color until an annual report of the school in 1928, long after her departure and her success in the world. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>As she entered the school at the age that children were almost completed with their education, she did not graduate with a class. Papers indicate she received an Honorary certificate of graduation about 1910. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She learned to read and write in Braille and this included braille music notation. The Missouri school had a braille printing capacity since the early 1860’s brailling music and literary material for the students. Missouri was one of the first schools for the blind to adopt Braille as its primary reading system for its students. Other skills she learned included homemaking, sewing, knitting and typing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>During her first several years at the school, most of the students were confined to the large four-story building. St. Louis had grown considerably as a town since the school was built. The railroad tracks ran right by the school and the depot was close. The noise from the trains made it almost impossible for teachers to be heard as the trains roared past. Strangers disembarked from trains regularly and the staff became concerned that the students would be taken advantage of by strangers and the seedy element that had moved into the area and to ensure the safety of the students, limited their activities outside the building. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In 1906, the Missouri Institution for the Education of the Blind moved to a new site. The building was new. Mary and other students were crammed into dorm rooms. Pianos for the tuning department were placed into dorm rooms crowding the living quarters even more. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Mary left the school in 1910 and rented a room from Alice Mellroy, black herself, who ran a small rooming house taking in “colored” boarders, on Gratiot Street in St. Louis. In the summer of 1910, she debuted as a singer in Philadelphia at the Musical Fund Hall to a packed audience. Soon she became the protégé of Madame Emma Azalia Hackley, the black singer promoter of racial pride through music.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Azalia was an accomplished musician and schoolteacher. She lived in Denver for a while and had many connections in the music, black and religious communities that she called upon to help launch Mary’s career. The two of them traveled to almost every state and Canada where Mary would perform her music and recitations of poetry and excerpts from classical literature. Both were light skinned Black women. Some accused Azalia of pretending to be white, yet all evidence leads to her using what ever she could to reach the broadest audience, highlighting the skills, talents and culture of the black entertainers she taught and promoted. This was the philosophy and tradition Mary adopted several years later, when she opened her music college. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In Mary’s promotional material, she included news clippings reviewing her previous performances along with long letters of reference from many church leaders, including her home church in St. Louis where she had been an active member for many years. A short letter of recommendation also came from the principal of the school for the blind <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She moved to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1916 or 1917 and took a room at 1436 Martindale. John, her future husband also lived at that address<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She married John William Valentine a man who worked as a porter for the Sanitary Cake Co., then went into business on his own and later worked in a printing office.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>She officially opened the Fitzhugh Valentine College of Music at 1735 Boulevard Place. In August of 1919. It was the first music school for “colored” people in the state of Indiana. Not only did she teach music theory, elocution and piano, but handled all the administration work for the first year or so. The school quickly grew. Mary hired several black teachers. The school inspired several choral groups that represented the College around Indianapolis and the state especially during religious holidays. The school participated in the Chautauqua Programs that came to Indianapolis as late as 1928. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The Chautauqua movement was a traveling tent show of sorts that promoted adult education. When the Chautauqua circuit came to town in the first three decades of the 20th century, , it provided an opportunity for many who could not afford to attend a high school or college an opportunity to become better informed or further their education. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Graduations and school concerts were held at the black Baptist Churches in the area as the school itself did not have an auditorium. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Mary served as a role model for other black blind children such as Dorothy Jones and Charles Amos. In 1922 Dorothy and her mother lived in the same building as the Fitzhugh-Valentine College. Dorothy was a student at the Indiana School for the Blind. Charles Amos was an early pupil who later became a leader in music circles in Indianapolis, teaching music privately. He was active in the school for years, performing and assisting with the publicity. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Although there were apartments in their office building, John and Mary lived in several locations around the school. They lived at 530 Douglas Street. After John’s death, she moved to 2146 Boulevard Place where she lived for the rest of her life. This was a mixed-race, middle-class neighborhood that no longer existed. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Mary was widowed in 1931 yet kept on with her college. She continued to teach at the school as well as the administrative duties. She no longer traveled out of the Indianapolis area to perform. In 1944, the College launched a fundraiser to purchase their own building as the school had outgrown the space. Mary died in July of 1945, not able to see the final new buildings. A small collection of her records can be found at the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Submitted by Uricka Harrison<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#222222'><br>Peace,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#222222'>Jacki Bruce<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#222222'>Corresponding Secretary, National Federation of the Blind of Virginia<br><a href="mailto:jackibruce6@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>mailto:jackibruce6@gmail.com</span></a></span><span style='color:black'><br></span><span style='color:#222222'><a href="tel:(757)291-1789" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>tel:(757)291-1789</span></a></span><span style='color:black'><br></span><span style='color:#222222'><a href="http://www.nfb.org/" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>www.nfb.org</span></a></span><span style='color:black'><br></span><span style='color:#222222'><a href="http://www.nfbv.org/" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>www.nfbv.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#222222'>Follow us on Twitter @NFBVirginia<br>Find us on Facebook @NationalFederationoftheBlindofVirginia<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#222222'>Live the life you want.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#222222'>The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation’s blind. Every day we work together to help blind people live the lives they want<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>