Sallie Martin

MARTIN, Sallie. b. Greene County, Georgia, 20 November 1895; d. Chicago, Illinois, 18 June 1988. Sallie Martin (née Barrow) was a singer, ensemble director, publisher, and promoter of black gospel music. She was raised by her mother, Della Barrow, a traveling musician, and her maternal grandparents in predominantly rural Greene County, east of Atlanta. Refusing to settle for the life of a sharecropper, Martin moved to Atlanta in 1917, with only an eighth-grade education, and held a series of jobs that included babysitting, housecleaning, and laundry; while living there, she married Wallace Martin. A fervent Baptist, she developed an interest in singing after joining the Fire-Baptized...