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Elmer Bartlett receiving a loving cup award from the NAACP at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, 1926

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Title: Elmer Bartlett receiving a loving cup award from the NAACP at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, 1926
Alternative Title: First A.M.E. Church groups and individuals at 8th and Towne
Date Created and/or Issued: [1926]
1926
Contributing Institution: UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library
Collection: Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection
Rights Information: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu
Description: Elmer Bartlett was a highly acclaimed choir director and organist. Churches where he worked in include the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles. He received several awards in the course of his career including first prize for directing the Los Angeles AME's choir at a 1926 choir competition at the Hollywood Bowl. By 1940 he had moved to Elgin Illinois. He continued to direct choirs and play the organ for various A.M.E. churches.
Claude Ellsworth McKinney had a sign painting business. He was a mason, president of the local NAACP, and civic leader.
Elmer Bartlett (2nd from left) receives a loving cup award from the NAACP at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church. With him are, from left: Claude McKinney (left), Mr. Alexander (3rd from left), Bartlett, and a reverend. Mr. Alexander and the reverend. Overhead is a banner: “…Now thy creator in the days …” Organ pipes are visible in the background.
On July 12, 1926, there was a choir contest at the Hollywood Bowl featuring ten of the “Leading Negro Choirs.” The winning sixty-voice choir of the AME church at Eighth and Towne, led by Professor Elmer Bartlett, performed Dudley Buck’s “Festivia Te Deum No. 7." The concluding piece of the program was a mass choir performance of the Negro national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Written on back of photo: First A.M.E. Church- 8th and Towne Ave. Prof. Elmer Bartlett, organist, presented a loving cup for his contributions to the NAACP by Mr. Alexander. From left: Claude McKinney, Elmer Bartlett, Mr. ___Alexander, and Rev___.
Type: image
Identifier: uclalsc_1889_b17_f13_003a.tif
ark:/21198/z1tb2r2j
Subject: African American choral conductors
African Methodist Episcopal Church--Bishops
African Methodist Episcopal Church (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Bartlett, Elmer C., b. 1887
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
McKinney, Claude Ellsworth, 1880-1969
Source: Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection
OpenUCLA Collections

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