Activities Among Negroes
The past week, although not so announced, has in a measure been music week among the colored citizens of Oakland. The music teachers have been having their annual recitals. They have given such good programs that each recital has become a society function, and largely attended. The first recital was given by Prof. Elmer Keaton's piano pupils. He has worked earnestly during the past year through public recitals to raise the standard of the musically inclined of both pupil and the general public. He bestowed upon his pupils the following awards: Gold medal, Julia Lawrence; silver medal, Irene Sears: scholarship card. Thelma Turban; special scholarship on the pipe organ, Maxine Blackburn.
The next recital was by the piano and dramatic pupils of Mme. Lillian Jetta Davis and the pupils showed careful training. The dramatic feature was an innovation well received.
A chorus of the combined choirs of the Oakland colored churches was supplemented by a quartet of male voices. The fifty or more singers were dressed in white, and sang the most difficult music, unaccompanied. Prof. Keaton used this method to give the public the display of the fine timber many of the voices contain, and to the music student it gave a lesson in harmony. The solo work was good. The final chorus was Verdi's Soldiers' Chorus from Faust.
"The Feast of the Little Lanterns," a Chinese operetta, was given during the past week by the Girls' Reserve of the Linden branch Y. W. C. A. It was well received and was rendered in a pleasing manner to a capacity audience in the Twentieth Century clubhouse in Berkeley.
During the past few weeks the reader has been given the names and account of many colored girls and boys of the east who have won prizes and scholarships. The writer knowing the high standard of both the California public schools and universities, together with the colored students, has been looking for a native California colored student to add to this list of distinguished students. The effort has been rewarded by finding James C. Williamson, a native Californian graduate of the University of Southern California, who has been employed as teacher of psychology and sociology in Tuskegee Normal Institute, Ala. Notwithstanding he was thus employed, he continued his studies and went before the state board of education of Alabama and won the Rockefeller Foundation scholarship representing $1800. Like all good Californians he returned to California to continue his studies in the university. He was also able to have the graduates of the normal department of Tuskegee granted state teachers' certificates for the state.
Dr. V. C. Hamilton, a native of Jamaica, West Indies, has just graduated with high honors as a medical doctor from Loma Linda medical college of Southern California. He took his premedical course at the Pacific Union College near St. Helena. He will remain In California to practice his profession.
Rev. E. Crigler, a product of one of Northern California theological schools, has been called as pastor of the Colored Baptist church of Pacific Grove, Cal.
