Identifier	george001.jpg
Title	Zelma George
Subject	George, Zelma Watson Opera singers Activists Cleveland Job Corps Diplomats African Americans Karamu House Cuyahoga Community College United Nations
Name	George, Zelma, 1903-1994
Maiden Name	Zelma Watson
Birth Date	1903-12-08
Death Date	1994-07-03
Accomplishments	Zelma George was the daughter of a Texas Baptist minister and remembered meeting a number of prominent black leaders in her home. Issues about race were discussed and her father believed in helping other African Americans. Mrs. George earned degrees in both sociology and music. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from New York University in 1954. She came to Cleveland after receiving a Rockefeller Foundation to study African American music. Her doctoral dissertation, A Guide to Negro Music: Toward a Sociology of Negro Music, cataloged approximately 12,00 musical compositions either inspired or written by African Americans. While working on her dissertation she married her husband, attorney Clayborne George in 1944. She also wrote a musical using her research entitled, "Chariot's AComin!" which was telecast by WEWS(Channel 5) TV in 1949. In 1949, Mrs. George also starred in Karamu's production of Menotti's opera, "The Medium". Mr. Menotti was so captivated by her performance that he had her perform the role in a revivial of this opera off Broadway. Mrs. George was the first African American cast in the role. During the fifties she became involved with national and international political issues as an advisor to the Eisenhower administration. She served on the president's commission to plan the White House Conference on Children and Youth, was on the executive council of the American Society for African Culture from 1959 to 1971, and served as a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations in 1960. In 1966 Ms. George became the executive director of the Cleveland Job Corps Center for Women. She won the Dag Hammarskjold Award for contributions to international understanding in 1961, the Dahlberg Peace Award in 1969, and the Mary Bethune Gold Medallion in 1973. Following her retirement and death of her husband she taught at Cuyahoga Community College. Mrs. George also received honorary doctorates from Heidelberg College (Ohio) and Baldwin Wallace College in 1961 and Cleveland State University in 1974.
Profession	Arts Community Education Government
Time Period	Decline and Comeback: 1960-1990
Date Original	1975-03-17
Object Type	black-and-white photographs
Digital Collection	Famous Women of Cleveland
Ohio Women's Hall of Fame Biography	http://www.odjfs.state.oh.us/women/halloffame/bio.asp?ID=102
Donor	Cole, Joseph E.
Copyright	http://www.clevelandmemory.org/copyright/
Format	JPG
Digital Processing Notes	TIF File Size: 5190 K, 600 dpi
Repository	Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections.
Repository Collection	Cleveland Press
Repository Homepage	http://library.csuohio.edu/speccoll/index.html
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History Entry	http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=GZW

George, Zelma, 1903-1994

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