A few years ago, my hometown paper in Laurel, Miss., asked me to write a series of columns focusing on local historical events. I decided to cover Black history since the white perspective was dominant. In one column, I wrote about one of our renowned citizens, Leontyne Price, who was raised a dozen or so blocks from where I grew up. Despite the challenges of Jim Crow, she is an African American who rose to become the world’s most celebrated opera singer.
Before I delved into my research, I clung to a story I deeply cherished. It was the tale of how a Black girl’s talent was discovered while performing menial chores in the mansion of a wealthy white woman. In this narrative, the lady of the house overheard Leontyne singing, and the latter’s voice captivated immediately. The hero of this version is Elisabeth Chisholm, a benevolent wife of a Laurel banker, who promptly took the girl under her wing.
Chisholm financed Leontyne’s education, facilitated her enrollment at Wilberforce and Juilliard, and opened doors to high society. Soon enough, Leontyne Price became the star of the Metropolitan Opera, touring Europe and captivating audiences that included presidents, premiers and royalty. The State Department even showcased her as proof to our Cold War enemies that race relations in the South were not as bad as all that.
This story resonated deeply with me. It echoed the Cinderella fairytale—a story of a humble girl, perhaps a scullery maid, toiling away until a benevolent fairy godmother transforms her into a princess. As a white Mississippian, this narrative filled me with pride for my people. It served as a rebuttal to the pervasive criticisms of our state regarding race. In fact, upon moving to Minneapolis, I recounted this story to skeptical northerners as evidence of Mississippi’s goodwill toward African Americans. It deflected our history of church bombings, lynchings and Klan activity.
However, when I interviewed Laurel’s African American community for the article, I discovered that my cherished fairytale was met with skepticism and outright discomfort. My question about Chisholm’s role in discovering Leontyne struck a nerve. Sensing the need to listen, I collected their accounts of how the opera diva started her journey. The narrative shifts, as often happens when stories are shared across racial lines. While they acknowledged Chisholm’s generosity, she wasn’t the central figure in their stories.
Instead, African Americans in Laurel stressed that Leontyne was destined for greatness long before Chisholm entered the picture. They highlighted the crucial roles Black men and women played: parents working multiple jobs to support their families in a striving Black middle-class community; Black piano teachers, voice coaches, preachers, choir directors, neighbors and local merchants who rallied behind Leontyne; and other Black children seeking to rise above Jim Crow’s limitations. Her mother, Katie, instilled a sense of potential in Leontyne, just as she did with her son, who later became a brigadier general in the U.S. Army.
I uncovered a nearly forgotten community network in my hometown—an invisible village that operated beneath Jim Crow’s radar. These African Americans refused to let segregation and discrimination thwart their children’s futures. They pooled their limited resources to ensure that excellence was not accidental and that Black children didn’t have to rely on luck or charity to achieve their dreams. This community launched Black professionals across various fields—from brain surgeons, lawyers, authors and political scientists to college professors, star athletes, army generals, concert pianists and, of course, operatic superstars like Leontyne Price—all from Laurel, Miss., a town of just around 20,000 residents.
Yet, as reflected in accounts published in magazines of the era like Time, Look and Life, the focus invariably shifted to Leontyne’s relationship with her supposed white savior, Elisabeth Chisholm. Interviewers fixated on this narrative, demanding to hear about her gratitude toward the benevolent white woman. It was the story the dominant white media wanted to hear. It was as if they wanted her to say, “I sure am one lucky colored girl!”
But those who knew her believed Price’s greatness was inevitable. Finding Chisholm to open doors was her destiny. Charity had nothing to do with it. Leontyne Price’s brilliance discovered Chisholm, not the reverse. If anyone should feel gratitude, they said, it was Elisabeth Chisholm.
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