CAAPA - Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts

05/21/2026

RIP Limmie Pulliam Limmie Pulliam. Your voice will live with us forever. 🎵🙏🏾😢🎶💔

05/15/2026

04/25/2026

COALITION FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE PERFORMING ARTS (CAAPA)
"Bringing Color to the Classics!"
Voices of the Past:
SALUTE!: Black Music of the
Forgotten Patriots in the Colonial Era
Presented by PG ARTS Parks & Recreation M-N CP P C
Produced by CAAPA
Written by DAR member Terri Allen.

Saturday
May 16, 2026
4:00 pm
Montpelier Arts Center
Laurel, MD

This riveting narrated
recital takes audience members back to the Colonial Period in America to explore the music, instruments, voices, and lives of Enslaved Africans, Forgotten Patriots, and others of the era including Indigenous and women.
Produced by the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts (CAAPA), you will hear traditional folk songs, patriotic selections, Negro Spirituals performed by Black classical musicians, fife music, and more voices of the past.

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT 301-839-1444

Featuring the
musical talents of duo
YVETTE SPEARS
and RONALD "TREY"
WALTON and
FIFER Don Francisco

04/07/2026

04/07/2026

DR JOLIE ROCKED
Jolie Rocke

04/07/2026

Happy Easter.

Before an integrated audience, Marion Anderson, an African American contralto, performed on Easter Sunday 1939 in front of over 75,000 people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Anderson had been scheduled to sing at Constitution Hall, but the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) cancelled the performance because of her skin color.

As the controversy spread across the news, President FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt stepped in and invited her to perform the Lincoln Memorial concert on Easter, which included the song "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at the NAACP conference later that year about the significance of Anderson’s performance.

Anderson’s performances became an important symbol in fighting for equality for African American artists. In 1955, she was the first African American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

📸 Marion Anderson performing at her concert on Easter Sunday, April 8, 1939 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. View northeast over the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument (Miller-Gillette Washington Seen photograph collection, MG 14.12)