Atlanta, Georgia (July 11, 1925 -December 8, 2015) age 90 yrs

Mattiwilda Dobbs, a coloratura soprano was the third African-American to be a principal singer with the Metropolitan Opera. Throughout her career, Ms. Dobbs refused to sing in segregated concert halls. She did not perform in her hometown, Atlanta, until 1962. That year, she sang before an integrated audience at the Municipal Auditorium there. In January 1974, she performed at another epochal Atlanta event. She sang the spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” This was at the inauguration of the city’s first black mayor, Maynard Jackson. The choice of Ms. Dobbs to perform at Mr. Jackson’s inauguration seemed almost foreordained, and not merely because of their shared background as racial pioneers. Mr. Jackson, the great-great-grandson of a slave, was also Ms. Dobbs’s nephew.