Portia White

Portia White
Portrait of White, taken ca. 1945 by Yousuf Karsh.
Background information
Born	(1911-06-24)June 24, 1911 Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada
Died	February 13, 1968(1968-02-13) (aged 56) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Opera, Classical, Gospel
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	1941-68

Portia White (June 24, 1911 – February 13, 1968) was a Canadian operatic contralto.

Portia May White was born in 1911 in Truro, Nova Scotia, the third of 13 children born to Izie Dora and William Andrew White. Her mother was a descendant of Black Loyalists, while her father was the son of former slaves from Virginia, and on his graduation from Acadia University in Nova Scotia in 1903, he became the university's first black graduate. He later became the minister of Cornwallis Street Baptist Church in Halifax, where Izie Dora White was the musical director. White began her musical career there as a choir member at the age of six.

Many members of White's family achieved fame in Canadian cultural and political life. Her brother Bill was the first Canadian of African heritage to run for political office in Canada, standing as a candidate for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in the 1949 election, and her brother Jack was a noted Canadian labour union leader. Portia White was the aunt of politician Sheila White, folk musician Chris White, Senator Donald Oliver and playwright George Elliott Clarke.

Portia White entered Dalhousie University in 1929, and from the early 1930s taught in Africville, a small seaside community in Halifax, largely populated by Black Nova Scotians. She won a scholarship to continue her musical training at the Halifax Conservatory of Music in 1939 with noted Italian baritone Ernesto Vinci.