Summary Opera singer Sissieretta Jones (1868-1933) was born in Portsmouth, Virginia and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, where she began singing at an early age in the church. In 1892, she became the first African American to headline a concert on the main stage at Carnegie Hall, at a time when access to most classical concert halls in the U.S. were closed to black performers and patrons. She also performed at the White House, and became an international sensation, receiving medals and badges from dignitaries and government officials, which she would pin to her elegant gowns when performing. Jones was often promoted by her white managers and by newspaper critics as "The Black Patti" -- a comparison, which many consider discriminatory, to the Italian opera singer Adelina Patti. The rise of segregation and enforcement of Jim Crow laws following the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling ended Jones' career in classical music venues catering primarily to white audiences. But she remained a star and, for almost two decades, traveled the country as the headliner for a troupe of up to 50 African American performers named in her honor, the Black Patti Troubadours. Interviewees: biographer Maureen D. Lee, author of Sissieretta Jones: "The Greatest Singer of Her Race," 1868-1933; soprano and Sissieretta Jones expert Harolyn Blackwell; and mezzo-soprano opera singer J'Nai Bridges, who recently made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Queen Nefertiti in Philip Glass's Akhnaten.

• Documentary
• Biography
• History