Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent

Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent (May 19, 1904 – March 10, 2001) was an American pianist, music educator, and community leader. She was the wife of Dillard University president Albert W. Dent, and the mother of poet and activist Thomas Dent.

Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent
A young light-skinned African-American woman, with bouffant styled hair and a double ribbon headband across her forehead; she is wearing drop earrings and a scoop-necked dress or blouse
Ernestine Jessie Covington, from a 1925 issue of The Crisis
Born
Ernestine Jessie Covington

May 19, 1904
Houston, Texas
DiedMarch 10, 2001(2001-03-10) (aged 96)
New Orleans, Louisiana
OccupationPianist
SpouseAlbert W. Dent
Children3 (Thomas Dent, Benjamin Albert Dent, Walter Jesse Dent)

Early life and education

Ernestine Jessie Covington was born in Houston, Texas,[1] the daughter of Benjamin Jesse Covington and Jennie Belle Murphy Covington.[2][3] Her father was a medical doctor; both of her parents were college graduates, and known to be musical. As prominent African-Americans in Houston, the Covingtons hosted house guests including Marian Anderson and Booker T. Washington.[4][5]

Covington began studying piano and violin as a little girl, with Madame Corilla Rochon, a neighbor.[6] By the time she was a teenager, she was playing music in a local women's orchestra[7] and at Baptist church services.[8]

Covington graduated at the top of her class from Houston Colored High School, and attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music as a music student from 1920 to 1924, where she was a charter member of Pi Kappa Lambda honor society.[6][9] After graduating from Oberlin,[10] she pursued further studies on scholarships at the Juilliard Musical Foundation,[11][12] where she worked with James Friskin and Olga Samaroff. Covington was the first African American and the first woman to attend Juilliard.[9] She earned a master's degree in piano at Oberlin College in 1934, with a thesis on the compositions of Franz Liszt.[9] [13] Dent accomplished this with support from the Rosenwald Fund.[8][14][9]

Career

Music

Dent played piano in recitals and on radio in the 1920s and 1930s.[15][16] During this time, she performed with opera singer Florence Cole Talbert. She taught music in Houston and at Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, where she chaired the piano department.[8][9] She served on the board of the New Orleans Philharmonic from 1971–1976. Dent played a vital role in the desegregation of orchestra concerts in New Orleans, and she encouraged the increase of classical musicians of color in symphony orchestras and teaching positions.[9] In 1985, she was the first recipient of the Fine Arts Award from the Amistad Research Center.[6]

Community leadership

Dent retired from performing in 1936, but remained active as a clubwoman, and was a social presence as a university president's wife from 1941 to 1969. As official hostess at Dillard University, she welcomed into her home prominent guests, including Martin Luther King Jr., Duke Ellington, Thurgood Marshall, and Eleanor Roosevelt.[17]

Dent was a founding member of the Flint-Goodridge Hospital Women's Auxiliary[18] as well as the New Orleans chapter of the historically black sorority Delta Sigma Theta.[19][20][9] She was credited for inspiring the creation of the Ebony Fashion Fair,[17] a touring event that raised funds for college scholarships and other charities.[6][8]

Personal life and legacy

Ernestine Covington married college president Albert W. Dent in 1931,[21][22] in a "brilliant wedding" in Houston. Composer and Howard University music professor Camille Nickerson played the organ at the ceremony, and Manet Harrison Fowler was a soprano soloist; biologist Samuel M. Nabrit stood as Dent's best man.[23] They had three sons. Their eldest son, Thomas Covington Dent (1932) became a poet and civil rights activist.[24][25][9][26] She was widowed when Albert Dent died in 1984, and she died in 2001, aged 96 years. The Albert and Jessie Covington Dent Papers are archived in the Amistad Research Center.[27][28] There was a Jessie Covington Dent Music Festival in 1998, and there is a Jessie Covington Dent Memorial Scholarship in Music, both at Dillard University, named in her memory.[6][8]

References
  1. Thomas, Jesse O. (July 1936). "Negroes and the Texas Centennial". The Crisis. 43: 206.
  2. Who's who in Colored America. Who's Who in Colored America Corporation. 1942. p. 155.
  3. Pruitt, Bernardette (2008). "Beautiful People: Community Agency, Work, and The Great Migration Phenomenon in Houston, Texas, 1900-1941" (conference paper).
  4. "Dr. Benjamin Covington Collection MSS.0170". Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  5. Lundy, Anne; Dent, Ernestine Jessie Covington (1984). "Pioneer Concert Pianist". The Black Perspective in Music. 12 (2): 245–265. doi:10.2307/1215025. ISSN 0090-7790. JSTOR 1215025.
  6. Thomson, Laura J. (January 29, 2017). "NOLA4Women: Jessie Covington Dent: Pianist, Community Leader and First Lady of Dillard University". Amistad Research Center. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  7. Pruitt, Bernadette (2013-10-16). The Other Great Migration: The Movement of Rural African Americans to Houston, 1900-1941. Texas A&M University Press. pp. 128–129. ISBN 978-1-62349-003-4.
  8. Pruitt, Bernadette (2013). "Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent". The Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  9. "Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent, 1913-1985, undated, 4". Amistad Research Center. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  10. "Houston Girl Wins $1,000 Scholarship". The Pittsburgh Courier. 1924-11-01. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. "Second Race Girl Wins Juilliard Mus. Foundation Award". The New York Age. November 1, 1924. p. 7. Retrieved February 10, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Jessie Covington Returns". The New York Age. 1926-10-02. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-02-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "Jessie Covington Dent, Pianist, Will Appear at B. S. T. C. Tonight". Bluefield Daily Telegraph. 1935-02-13. p. 4. Retrieved 2020-02-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "Mrs. Albert W. Dent Gets Rosenwald Grant". The Pittsburgh Courier. 1933-07-08. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  15. "Jessie Covington Heard by Southern Audiences". The New York Age. 1926-07-17. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-02-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. Calvin, Floyd J. (1927-11-19). "Madame Jackery, Jessie Covington on 'Courier Radio Hour'". The Pittsburgh Courier. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-02-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. "Jessie C. Dent, 96, New Orleans Pianist, Teacher, and Community Leader who Inspired Creation of the Ebony Fashion Fair, Dies". Jet: 55–56. April 2, 2001.
  18. Flint-Goodridge Hospital Collection. 1932. OCLC 53908472.
  19. Cansler, O. J. (1939-02-18). "Jessie Covington-Dent Charms in Piano Recital". The Pittsburgh Courier. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-02-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. "Singing Sorors of DST Louise Burge, Frankye Dixon, & Jessie Covington Dent". The Pittsburgh Courier. 1948-01-10. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-02-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. Richardson, Joe M. (1996). "Albert W. Dent: A Black New Orleans Hospital and University Administrator". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 37 (3): 309–323. ISSN 0024-6816. JSTOR 4233313.
  22. "Dr. and Mrs. Covington Announce Engagement of Their Daughter". The Pittsburgh Courier. 1931-05-23. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-02-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. "Ernestine Covington Becomes Mrs. A. W. Dent in Brilliant Wedding". The New York Age. 1931-07-11. p. 10. Retrieved 2020-02-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. Flucker, Turry (2012-09-18). African Americans of New Orleans. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4396-2241-4.
  25. "Tom Dent, NAACP Worker Campaigned for Civil Rights". The New York Times. June 13, 1998. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  26. "Dent, Tom (1932-1998) | Amistad Research Center". amistadresearchcenter.tulane.edu. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
  27. Thomson, Laura J. (March 21, 2016). "50 Years/50 Collections - New Orleans Movers and Shakers: The Dent Family". Amistad Research Center. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  28. Rogers, Kim Lacy (1995-01-01). Righteous Lives: Narratives of the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement. NYU Press. pp. 120, 239. ISBN 978-0-8147-6947-8.
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