Etta Moten Barnett

Etta Moten Barnett (November 5, 1901 – January 2, 2004) was an American actress and contralto vocalist, who was identified with her signature role of "Bess" in Porgy and Bess.

She created new roles for African-American women on stage and screen.

After her performing career, Barnett was active in Chicago as a major philanthropist and civic activist, raising funds for and supporting cultural, social and church institutions.

She also hosted a radio program in Chicago and represented the United States in several official delegations to nations in Africa.

Etta Moten was born in Weimar, Texas, the only child of a Methodist minister, Rev. Freeman F. Moten, and a teacher, his wife, Ida Norman Moten.

She started singing as a child in the church choir.

Etta's family put great importance on education, as her parents made sure she was enrolled in good schools no matter where they moved.

Etta attended Paul Quinn College's secondary school in Waco, Texas.

She then attended Western University, a historically black college (HBCU) in Quindaro, Kansas, where she studied music.

To pay her tuition, she joined a quartet on Topeka's WREN radio, performed on the Chautauqua circuit, and spent summers with the Jackson Jubilee Singers.

She completed her education at the University of Kansas, where she earned a B.A. in voice and drama in 1931.

She became the first student to present a recital in the campus's newly constructed Hoch Auditorium.

Moten became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, which provided a network throughout her career.

Etta Moten Barnett's first job began at Lincoln University.

She received a teaching contract, which was short-lived when her father informed her that she would be moving to New York.

Moten moved to New York City, where she first performed as a soloist with the Eva Jessye Choir.

Jessye was a groundbreaking collaborator with Virgil Thomson and George Gershwin.

In 1931, she performed in Fast and Furious; a musical revue written by Zora Neale Hurston.

Moten was cast in the Broadway show Zombie.

She performed in two musical films released in 1933: Flying Down to Rio (singing "The Carioca") and a more substantial role as a war widow in the Busby Berkeley musical Gold Diggers of 1933 (singing the emotive "My Forgotten Man" with Joan Blondell).

Also in 1933, she dubbed the singing of Theresa Harris in Professional Sweetheart.

Up until this point, the representation of black women in movies was limited to maids or nannies (the Mammy archetype).

Moten made a breakthrough with her roles in these movies and is generally recognized as the first black woman to do so.

Moten performed The Forgotten Man from her movie Gold Diggers of 1933 for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at his birthday celebration.

The song echoed Roosevelt's campaign promise that he would remember the "forgotten man."

Etta Moten Barnett crossed over decades before that music-industry phrase existed.

Disturbed by subtle but persistent racial discrimination, Etta persevered, believing she had to be “twice as good to get anywhere at all.”

Gershwin discussed her singing the part of "Bess" in his new work Porgy and Bess, which he had written with her in mind.

She was concerned about trying a role above her natural range of contralto.

On January 31, 1934, Moten became the first African American to perform at the White House in the 20th century, the first in over 50 years since Marie Selika Williams performed for President Rutherford B. Hayes and First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes in 1878.

In the 1942 revival, the part of Bess was rewritten.

She did accept the role of "Bess", but she would not sing the word "nigger", which Ira Gershwin subsequently wrote out of the libretto.

Through her performances on Broadway and with the national touring company until 1945, she captured Bess as her signature role.

She stopped performing in 1952 owing to vocal problems after doctors found a cyst on her vocal cords that required surgery.

After her husband, Claude Barnett, died in 1967, she lived in Chicago, where she became active in the National Council of Negro Women, the Chicago Lyric Opera, and the Field Museum.

She was also active in the DuSable Museum and the South Side Community Art Center.

In addition to activities with civic organizations, Moten Barnett served as a board member of both The Links, a service organization for African-American women, and her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

She was also active in International Women's Year activities and events in the 1980s.

In the 50s and 60s Moten Barnett hosted a radio show in Chicago called I Remember When.

Dozens of recordings of I Remember When are available at the Library of Congress and at the Schomburg Library in New York City.