Anna Goodwin

Anna Gardner Goodwin (October 1874–1959) was a Black American composer, music educator, and Broadway performer born in Augusta, Georgia, to Daniel and Anna Gardner. Her father, Daniel Gardner, was known as "the March King of Augusta," a cornet player who organized a Sunday afternoon concert series for Black Augustans. Goodwin later credited watching her father perform as the experience that first inspired her to pursue music.

In 1895, Goodwin married the Reverend George A. Goodwin, a theology professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. During their marriage, she supported the college's musical life by leading music programs and accompanying the school's glee club. The couple had four children together: a son, George Jr., and three daughters named Janie, Anna, and Eunice. Reverend Goodwin died in 1914, and three years later Goodwin relocated to Chicago, Illinois, alongside her sister, Janie Gardner Burruss (1876–1924), who was also widowed.

Goodwin's performing career included an appearance on Broadway in 1906 in the musical Mamselle Sallie. That same year, she produced a substantial body of compositional work, including "I Will Follow Jesus," "Do Not Touch the Wine Cup," "Jesus Don't Pass Me By," "Praise the Lord," "Tell the Story Everywhere," and "Willing Workers." Her earlier composition "Cuba Libre March," written in 1898, was later included in the anthology Black Women Composers: A Century of Piano Music, 1893–1990, published in 1992. Her final composition, "Freedom to All March," was written to commemorate the 1951 race riot in Cicero, Illinois, and was performed by the Cicero Bank in 1956. Additional compositions across her career include "Adalene" (1909), "I'm Lonely Just for You" (1934), "We've Got to Win this War" (1943), and "The House by the Side of the Road," among others.

Beyond performing and composing, Goodwin worked as a music educator throughout much of her adult life. She held a faculty position at Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, teaching vocal music from 1917 to 1918. In the summer of 1913, she received a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania to study the method and supervision of public school music. During the 1930s, she served as assistant house director of the Chicago YWCA.

Goodwin's musical legacy extended into subsequent generations of her family. Her granddaughter, Jane Alexander Robinson, became one of the founders of the Michigan Association of Black Psychologists. Two of Jane's grandsons, David E. Robinson III and Richard Robinson, both pursued careers as professional musicians and composers. Richard Robinson became a full member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1989 and was named a Kresge Arts Fellow in 2010.

Anna Gardner Goodwin died in 1959 at the age of 85. Her papers, including a handwritten autobiography, are preserved at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.