Portia K. Maultsby

Maultsby was born in Orlando, Florida,[1] to Maxie C. and Valdee Maultsby (later Maultsby-Williams),[2][3] and grew up in the segregated American South.[4] Her older brother was psychiatrist Maxie C. Maultsby, Jr. (1932–2016).[2][5] She also had a twin brother, Casel Hayes Maultsby (1947–1988), a pilot.[2][6]

Maultsby graduated from Jones High School in Orlando in 1964.[7] She attended Mount St Scholastica College (now Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas, on a music scholarship,[7] graduating in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in piano, theory, and composition.[1] The following year, she earned a master's degree in musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.[1] In 1974, she was awarded a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison;[7][8] she was the first African American to be awarded that degree in the United States.[1]

Maultsby began lecturing at Indiana University in 1971, while still a graduate student.[1][9] She became the founding director of the Indiana University Soul Revue, a student ensemble dedicated to Black music.[9][7] By 1975, she was an assistant professor in the Department of African-American Studies.[7] She went on to become chair of the department (1985–91), then professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology (from 1992).[1]

Maultsby's specialization in African-American music spans genres, including funk, soul, rhythm and blues, and spirituals.[9][10] She founded the university's Archives of African American Music and Culture in 1991, and served as its director from 1991 through 2013.[9] The archives started as Maultsby's personal collection and grew to include more than 10,000 pieces of music and music-related items (including interviews, photographs, and recordings) by 2003.[4]

Maultsby co-edited two textbooks with her Indiana University colleague Mellonee V. Burnim: African American Music: An Introduction (2006)[11] and Issues in African American Music: Power, Gender, Race, Representation (2016).[12] She wrote the foreword to the 2018 book Black Lives Matter and Music: Protest, Intervention, Reflection, edited by Fernando Orejuela and Stephanie Shonekan.[13]

Maultsby has also served as a consultant for museums (including serving as a senior scholar at the Smithsonian Institution in 1985) and documentary films (including the PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize).[14][15]