Mary Cardwell Dawson was the Founding Director of the National Negro Opera Company (NNOC, est. 1941), the most successful and influential Black opera company in the United States. In this role, Cardwell Dawson became the first woman in the US to run such a company. Born in Madison, NC, she was the third of six children. In the early 1960s, John F. Kennedy appointed Cardwell Dawson to theNational Music Committee in recognition of her contribution to American art.

The National Negro Opera Company was born of Cardwell Dawson's frustrated desire to become an opera singer, only to find her way barred by colorism. Also a talented music educator, her Cardwell School of Music trained a whole generation of Pittsburgh youth, including future jazz piano great Ahmad Jamal, and led to the establishment of the Cardwell Dawson Choir. In 2016, she was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. In 2024, Sandra Seaton’s opera The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson premiered – it dramatizes a pivotal night in Cardwell Dawson and NNOC’s history in 1943, when storms forced the company’s production of Bizet’s Carmen o a Potomac barge and into a segregated hall.

In December 2024, the North Carolina Opera hosted "The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson" sponsord by the NC Music Office along with the NC Arts Council. As part of our outreach and education initiatives, we were able to bring 60 teachers and students as guests to the performance. Learn mnore about the opera and this special night.

Interested in adding Mary Cardwell Dawson's powerful story to your classroom curriculum? High school and K-8 resources are available here.