Eileen Jackson Southern (February 19, 1920 – October 13, 2002) was an Americanmusicologist, researcher, author, and teacher.^[1][2] Southern's research focused onblack American musical styles, musicians, and composers; she also published onearly music.

Eileen Southern
Born	Eileen Stanza Jackson (1920-02-19)February 19, 1920 Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
Died	October 13, 2002(2002-10-13) (aged 82) Port Charlotte, Florida, US
Occupation	Musicologist

Eileen Jackson grew up around many musicians in her family; her father was a violinist; an uncle, a trumpetist; and her mother, a choir singer.^[3] According to music scholar Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., "In childhood, as she developed as apianist, young Eileen was introduced to and became partial to the music of those she calls the 'piano composers,' includingJohann Sebastian Bach,Ludwig van Beethoven, andClaude Debussy. In addition, her piano teachers, mostly white, were concerned that she wouldn't know music by black composers and introduced her toR. Nathaniel Dett'sIn the Bottoms, among other such compositions."^[4]

Jackson attendedpublic schools in her hometown, Minneapolis, Minnesota, inSioux Falls, South Dakota, and inChicago, Illinois. She majored in commercial art atLindblom High School in Chicago. During the same period, she won piano-performance and essay competitions, taught piano lessons, and directed musical activities at theLincoln Community Center. She gave her first piano recital at the age of twelve and made her debut inChicago Orchestra Hall at age eighteen, playing aMozart concerto with thesymphony orchestra of theChicago Musical College.

She attended and received degrees from theUniversity of Chicago (B.A., 1940, andM. A., 1941). Her relationship withCecil Smith, her master thesis advisor, encouraged her to further develop her interest inNegrofolk music. In 1942, she married Joseph Southern, a professor of business administration.^{[citation needed]}

She continued her studies and received aPhD inmusicology fromNew York University, 1961. Her doctoral dissertation on theBuxheim Organ Book was supervised byGustave Reese.^[5] At NYU, in addition to Gustave Reese, she also studied withCurt Sachs andMartin Bernstein.^[3] She also studied piano privately atChicago Musical College,Juilliard, andBoston University.

Throughout her career, Southern taught at various institutions across the United States. From 1941 to 1942, she was an instructor atPrairie View University inTexas. From 1943 to 1945 and 1949 to 1951, she was an assistant professor atSouthern University inLouisiana. From 1954 to 1960, she worked as a teacher for theNew York City Public School district. She returned to higher education from 1960 to 1968 as an assistant professor atBrooklyn College,CUNY, and then as an associate and full professor atYork College, CUNY, from 1968 to 1975, where she established the music program.

In 1974, she became a lecturer atHarvard University. Two years later, she became the first black woman to be appointed a tenured full professor at Harvard University, where she taught until 1987. While at Harvard, she served as the chair of the department of Afro-American Studies from 1975 to 1979.

Her best-known book is the seminal historyThe Music of Black Americans (1971). Her other work isBiographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (1982). She foundedThe Black Perspective in Music in 1973, with her husband, Prof.Joseph Southern. It was the first musicological journal on the study of black music, and she was its editor until it ceased publication in 1990.

Through her academic work, she raised the profile ofFrank Johnson, a black bandleader fromPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, who rose to fame at the end of the eighteenth century, beginning of the nineteenth century. He ledFrank Johnson's Colored Band, and by 1818, he had taken his band as far south asRichmond, Virginia, playing dances for white southerners. Johnson had played a command performance atBuckingham Palace, where he received a silver bugle in appreciation.

Throughout her career, Southern worked with various professional societies. From 1974 to 1976, she served on the board of directors and then editorial board from 1976 to 1978 for theAmerican Musicological Society. She was a member of theInternational Musicological Society,College Music Society, andAssociation for the Study of Negro Life and History. From 1980 to her retirement, she served on the editorial board for theSonneck Society for American Music and as a member of the Board of Directors from 1986 to 1988.

In 1987, she retired as a professor emeritus to live inSt. Albans, New York.

Southern's professional achievements were much lauded in the academic and artistic communities. Southern received aNational Humanities Medal in 2001 for having "helped transform the study and understanding of American music."^[6] She also received aLifetime Achievement Award from theSociety for American Music in 2000.^[7] Her portrait, by artistStephen E. Coit was commissioned by the Harvard Foundation at Harvard University.^[8]

On August 22, 1942 Eileen Jackson married Joseph Southern, a co-founder of the journal theBlack Perspective in Music. They had a daughter, April, and a son, Edward.

• The Buxheim Organ Book (2 Vols.), PhDdissertation,New York University, (New York: Institute of Medieval Music, 1963).OCLC 38257123,11709711,641975830,923463274
• The Music of Black Americans: A History (New York:W. W. Norton & Company, 1971)

• Readings in Black American Music. Edited by Eileen Southern. (New York:W. W. Norton & Company, 1971; rev. ed., 1983).OCLC 495545943;ISBNs0-3939-5280-0,978-0-3939-5280-3
• Anonymous Pieces in the MS El Escorial IV.a.24. Edited by Eileen Southern (Basel:Hänssler-Verlag, 1981).
• Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians. (Westport, Connecticut:Greenwood Press (1982).LCCN 81-2586;OCLC 902119012,891419844;ISBN 0-313-21339-9 (borrowable onlineviaInternet Archive).
• Images: Iconography of Music in African-American Culture (1770s–1920s),Josephine Rosa Beatrice Wright, PhD (born 1942) (co-author), (New York: Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 2000; reprinted byRoutledge, 2019).OCLC 1084316639

• Southern, Eileen (2001)."Freeman, (Harry) Lawrence".Grove Music Online. Oxford, England:Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.10187.ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.(subscription,Wikilibrary access, orUK public library membership required)

• Darlene Clark Hine, ed. (1993).Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing Inc.ISBN 0-926019-61-9.
• The Papers of Eileen Southern, Harvard University Archive, Harvard University

• African American Registry
• Guide to the Eileen Southern Collection, Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College Chicago
• Harvard Finding Aid
• Official Harvard Art Museum Portrait
• Eileen Southern andThe Music of Black Americans, a digital exhibition at Harvard University