Today In Black History: Dr. Don Shirley
An award-winning and internationally-renowned American classical and jazz pianist and composer
Issue #869 Today In Black History, Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Throughout June, “Black Music Month,” we are highlighting Black musicians.
Donald Walbridge Shirley, born on January 29, 1927, in Pensacola, Florida, showcased musical prowess from an early age. His mother, a schoolteacher, and his father, an Episcopal priest, were Jamaican immigrants who valued education and nurtured his artistic inclinations. He was not related to Professor George Shirley.
Dr. Don Shirley's prodigious talent was evident by the age of nine, when he performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Boston Pops.
Don Shirley received his bachelor's degree in music from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1953. He was later awarded two honorary doctorates.
Dr. Shirley was not just a pianist. Because he initially found it difficult to achieve success as a classical pianist, he studied psychology and liturgical arts. He studied psychology at the University of Chicago and worked as a psychologist in Chicago.
Ultimately, it was his innovative fusion of classical music with jazz, spirituals, and popular music that distinguished him. This eclectic style, often misunderstood and unappreciated during his time, has since been recognized for its groundbreaking nature.
Dr. Shirley recorded many albums for Cadence Records during the 1950s and 1960s, experimenting with jazz that incorporated classical influences. He wrote organ symphonies, piano concertos, a cello concerto, three string quartets, a one-act opera, works for organ, piano, and violin, a symphonic poem based on the 1939 novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and a set of "Variations" on the 1858 opera Orpheus in the Underworld.
At a time when racial segregation was rampant in the United States, Shirley often found himself in the painful position of being celebrated for his music while simultaneously experiencing discrimination and prejudice.
“He was a child prodigy, but he couldn’t be a classical pianist because of the color of his skin. You can hear the pain in his voice. You can see his anger. He was angry because he was disrespected,” a Shirley family member stated.
Dr. Shirley's nephew, Edwin, said his record label falsely claimed that he studied music in Europe to "make him acceptable in areas where a Black man from a Black school wouldn’t have gotten any recognition at all."
Yet, his tours across the American South in the 1960s, depicted poignantly in the 2018 film "Green Book," were more than just concerts; they were necessary acts of quiet resistance against racial intolerance.
From the perspective of the Shirley family, the movie “The Green Book” did not do justice to Dr. Shirley’s life or legacy. The family said that the movie was written from a “white savior” point of view and downplayed both the brilliance of Dr. Shirley and the truth of his being driven throughout the South during the early 1960s.
While the film depicts Shirley as estranged from his family and alienated from other African Americans, Shirley's surviving family members dispute this. They say he was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, attended the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, and knew other African American artists and leaders. He also had three brothers with whom, according to his family, he kept in touch.
Spike Lee, who almost walked out of the awards show when “The Green Book” won “Best Picture” over Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” and his own “Black KKKlansman,” stated that the Oscars made “a big mistake.”
In late 1968, Shirley performed the Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto with the Detroit Symphony. He also worked with the Chicago Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra. He wrote symphonies for the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He played as soloist with the orchestra at Milan's La Scala opera house in a program dedicated to George Gershwin's music. Igor Stravinsky, who was an admirer of Shirley's, said of him, "His virtuosity is worthy of Gods."
Dr. Donald Walbridge Shirley died of heart disease on April 6, 2013, at the age of 86.
Today In Black History
In 1889, two Black inventors, Purdy and Sadgwar, patented the folding chair.
In 1911, Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
In 1951, the African nation of Mozambique became a Portuguese overseas province.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy sent a message to Congress urging it to pass a civil rights act, calling segregation “morally wrong.” The speech was partially prompted by the action of Georgia Governor George Wallace physically blocking the entrance to the University of Alabama after a federal judge ordered the admission of two Black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood.
In 1964, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly attempting to sabotage the white South African government.
In 1978, Joseph Freeman Jr. was named the first Black priest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 2008, an estimated 500,000 songs, including master recordings of Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald, were lost in a warehouse fire on the Universal backlot in Los Angeles.
In 2021, a Pulitzer Prize special citation was awarded to Darnella Frazier for recording the murder of George Floyd on her phone.
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