Opera legend Camilla Williams, photographed here by Carl Van Vechten in 1946, died on January 29, 2012 at her home in Bloomington, Indiana. Ms. Williams’ debut as Cio-Cio-San in Pucci’s Madama Butterfly” with the New York City Opera on May 15, 1946, was thought to make her the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company nine years before Marian Anderson’s historic debut at the more prestigious Metropolitan Opera. Ms. Williams sang at the March on Washington in 1963 and at Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1964. A graduate of Virginia State College, Ms. Williams retired from opera in 1971 and taught college in New York before arriving at Indiana University where she remained until her retirement in 1997.
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