Eleven years into the Jim Crow laws, Florence B. Price (1888–1953) was born into a middle-class family in Little Rock, Ark. It was a time when anyone of African descent in North America, no matter their successes, was viewed as part of the under-class.
Price’s mother was a music teacher, owned and ran a restaurant, worked in real estate, and served as secretary of the International Loan and Trust Company. 

Her father was an artist, a notable dentist, and inventor of patented dental tools.
The family was considered among the ‘10 percenters,’ meaning people who benefited from a classical education and had the potential to lead American society.

They were known to host gatherings of the Black intelligentsia. Young Florence entertained those guests on the piano, a skill taught by her mother.
In 1903, Price attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Knowing that race was a barrier for entry, she presented herself as being of Mexican descent. In three years, she earned a soloist’s diploma in organ and a teacher’s diploma in piano.
Encouraged to compose, Florence studied composition and counterpoint. Her early works included pieces for piano and organ. She later returned to the South, teaching at the Arkadelphia Presbyterian Academy and later at Little Rock’s Shorter College. She became head of the music department at Clark University in Atlanta (1910–1912), and then returned to Little Rock.
Despite her qualifications, Price was denied membership to the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association. Refusing to give up, she established her own music studio and founded the Little Rock Club of Musicians. 

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At that time, racial tension in Little Rock was escalating. The numbers of Black men being beaten and lynched were on the rise. Price and her husband fled to Chicago for their safety.
The Prices divorced in 1931, leaving Florence a single mother. She then played the organ for silent film screenings and wrote popular songs for WGN radio. She forged friendships with like-minded musicians and artists and continued her composition studies. Eventually, Price’s concert music came to the attention of one of her teachers, which led to her big break in 1932.
Price won several prizes at the Wanamaker Music Composition Contest. These successes attracted the attention of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s music director, who, soon after, conducted a performance of Price’s First Symphony (1933).

At that moment, she became established as a composer of note and the first Black woman in American history to have a symphonic work performed by a major American orchestra.
“It is a faultless work, a work that speaks its own message with restraint and yet with passion … worthy of a place in the regular symphonic repertory,” the Chicago Daily News reported.
Despite her success, Price struggled, surviving mostly on the kindness of friends. She suffered from poor health and was often hospitalized. By 1953, her work was gaining a new momentum. While preparing for a promotion trip to Europe, she suffered a heart attack and died.

Christy Price

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