Clarence Cameron White

He left Clarksville as a boy. His father, a doctor and school principal, died when Clarence was two, and his mother, a violinist, took the family to her parents' home in Oberlin, Ohio. At six he was given his grandfather's violin on the condition that it be taken back if he ever played for a dance. In 1892, in Washington, the violinist Will Marion Cook gave him summer lessons, and in 1894 he studied with Joseph Douglass, grandson of Frederick Douglass. He entered the Oberlin Conservatory in 1896.

What the plaque says

Clarence Cameron White Dr. Clarence Cameron White, born in Clarksville, Tennessee, rose to international prominence as a violinist, composer, educator and conductor. He studied composition with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and violin with Michael Zacherewitsch. White taught at Washington Conservatory of Music, West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University) and Hampton Institute (now Hampton University). A noted violinist and composer, White, an African American, won a Harmon Foundation Award, Rosenwald Fellowships, and the David Bispham Memorial Medal for his opera "Ouanga." He died in New York in 1960.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Defiance Civil War Park and Interpretive Center — 1.1 mi
  An intact earthwork fort above the Cumberland and Red Rivers in Clarksville, begun with forced Black labor and later a contraband camp and recruiting center for Black soldiers.
• Dunbar Cave State Park — 3.6 mi
  A Clarksville cave with 800-year-old Mississippian artwork, later a resort and Roy Acuff's dance stage, now a state park with seasonal guided tours.
• Cross Creeks National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  An 8,862-acre refuge on the Cumberland River floodplain near Dover, made in 1962 to replace habitat Lake Barkley flooded, wintering tens of thousands of waterfowl.

More markers nearby

• Clarksville's Slave Market — steps away
• Trinity Episcopal Church — steps away
• Montgomery County Courthouse — steps away
• Austin Peay — steps away