Edward Hammond Boatner

BOATNER, Edward Hammond. b. New Orleans, Louisiana, 13 November 1898; d. New York City, 16 June 1981. Edward Boatner was a multi-talented musician recognized as a composer, choral conductor, and singer as well as author of plays, stories, and music education materials. He was especially noted for essays in African American history and his concertized arrangements of African American spirituals*.  He was the son of an itinerant Methodist minister Dr. Daniel Webster Boatner (?1854— ). His surname was derived from the master who ‘owned’ Edward’s enslaved grandparents. Boatner describes his family lineage in a 1972 interview:  My grandmother years ago was a slave, my father, a boy slave. When...