# @oberlincollege on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DGWL72TNMB_
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/27530150-oberlincollege-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/8342400e64.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-02-21T19:30:41.000+00:00

## Caption

For this week's installment of our Black History Month spotlights, we are introducing Shirley Graham Du Bois ’34. While a student at Oberlin College and Conservatory, Graham Du Bois became the first Black woman to write, compose, and stage an opera with an all-Black cast. "Tom-Tom: An Epic of Music of the Negro" premiered in the summer of 1932 at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium and featured a cast of 500, a 21-foot waterfall, and a live elephant. Graham Du Bois collaborated with the community to put her historic production together; she recruited local church choirs to join the cast and held a contest for local students to design the set, with the winners receiving a $50 prize. "Tom-Tom"’s two performances in Cleveland attracted a crowd of over 25,000.

After graduating from Oberlin, Graham Du Bois—who later married civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois—worked as a director, writer, and activist. She wrote and staged plays, published biographies, organized for the NAACP, and wrote for various newspapers and magazines. Thanks to Oberlin faculty and students, her story will not be forgotten. 

Read more about the incredible ways the Oberlin community has honored Du Bois's legacy in the Spring 2021 Oberlin Alumni Magazine article by Rebekkah Rubin ’13 at the #linkinbio 

📸: Courtesy of @oberlincollegearchives

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## Credits

These are the roles credited on Gondola. Credits may be incomplete.
A brand, account owner, or featured person is not necessarily the creator.

| Name | Username | Profile | Role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| oberlincollege | @oberlincollege | https://gondola.cc/oberlincollege | University |
| Lucy Curtis | @1ucyyy | https://gondola.cc/1ucyyy | Copywriter |
| Lucy Curtis | @1ucyyy | https://gondola.cc/1ucyyy | Social Media Coordinator |

## Tags

linkinbio

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