Lucinda Bragg Adams

Lucinda "Lucie" Bragg Adams (née Bragg; other surnames include Peters and Anthony; was an African American physician, educator, temperance leader, musician, and writer.

Early life and education Lucinda Bragg was born in Warrenton, North Carolina, the daughter of George Freeman Bragg and his wife, Mary Bragg.

She moved shortly afterward to Petersburg, Virginia, where her family had roots. Her grandmother had founded Petersburg's St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Her older brother was George Freeman Bragg, publisher of the Afro-American Churchman and the Church Advocate.

Adams' family were close friends of John Mercer Langston, the first African-American Congressman, and Adams later dedicated her song Old Blandford Church to him.

From ages 6 to 13, she was taken by a white missionary to Salem, New Jersey to attend a white school and receive a musical education (as there were yet no schools established for Blacks in Petersburg).

She attended the Colored Schools of Petersburg. She graduated from Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1893, and received an M.D. degree from Meharry Medical College in 1907.

Career Adams was noted for her musical talent at a young age. She performed in the Petersburg region as a solo and ensemble singer (sometimes with the Selika Quartette), and as an organist, pianist, violinist, and guitarist.

By 1877, she taught at the Normal School associated with Petersburg's St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. During this time she was a member of the musical board of Petersburg's Chorannesse Literary and Social Club. Her first husband Edward Peters was treasurer of a similar Petersburg club, the Aeolian Club. Lucinda left Petersburg in order to find opportunities to teach music (Petersburg's public school system didn't hire black teachers). By 1882 she was teaching in Danville, and in 1883 she became principal of the "colored school" in Harrisonburg.

In 1887, she taught in Charlotte, North Carolina at St. Michael's Training and Industrial School.

In 1885, she had composed a waltz, a march dedicated to J. E. O'Hara, several sacred pieces, and the song Old Blandford Church. ), and is the 2nd composition known to have been published by an African American woman (after Louise Smith's Forgive ). publishing, editing, and contributing to publications including the A.M.E. Church Review, Our Women and Children, the Petersburg Lancet, Afro-American Churchman, and the Church Advocate (many of these with her sister Carrie and her brother George). In 1892, when Amelia Tilghman revived her pioneering music journal The Musical Messenger in Washington DC, she chose Adams (then living in Baltimore) as her associate editor. She fought for fundraising, capital improvements (42 buildings were constructed during her tenure), salary increases and increased teaching standards (lengthening the school term from 10 weeks to 22 weeks, and obtaining high school degrees for many of her students). In 1925, she wrote the elementary school reader Little Clusters for use in the district, which included original songs. In 1931, she chronicled her work in A Concise History of Sumter County Colored Schools 1915-1931. She was part of the executive committee of the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools.

Lucinda died in Baltimore, Maryland in 1932. Some of her archives are held by the Sumter Historical Society.

The Bragg family were the inspiration for Emory Waters' 2000 opera, The Edge of Glory, which was premiered in a concert staging by the Petersburg Symphony Orchestra.

Marriages Edward Peters? - ~1883 to 1893 (separated in 1889) Francis W. Anthony, an A.M.E. Zion minister, from 1908 to his death in 1928.