Gaye Adegbalola
American blues singer and guitarist
Gaye Adegbalola (born Gaye Todd; March 21, 1944,) is an American blues singer and guitarist, teacher, lecturer, activist, and photographer.
Early life and education
Gaye Adegbalola was born on March 21, 1944, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Adegbalola's father, Clarence R. Todd, was the first Black school board member in Fredericksburg, as well as a jazz musician. He founded a performing arts group for black youth called "Souls of Shade", today known as "Harambee 360° Experimental Theater." Her mother, Gladys P. Todd, was an early organizer of local civil rights movement in Fredericksburg and she frequently brought home old jazz records from her job at the Youth Canteen to give to young Gaye.
Abegbalola attended a segregated high school called Walker–Grant High School, and she graduated as her class valedictorian in 1961. During her time at Walker-Grant High School, she participated in numerous sit-in protests and picket lines as a member of the civil rights movement. She later attended Boston University, where she graduated with a B.A. in biology.
Career
Adegbalola's occupations after college included being a technical writer for TRW Systems, a biochemical researcher at Rockefeller University, and a bacteriologist at Harlem Hospital where she was also the local union representative. These were all in sharp contrast to her first job as a teenager, where she worked at a laundry mat for forty-five cents an hour. From 1966 to 1970, she was involved in the Black Power Movement in New York and she organized the Harlem Committee on Self-Defense, where she met individuals such as Audre Lorde.
“Gaye Adegbalola” enters the record as american blues singer and guitarist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gaye, Adegbalola and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4057460. VIAF identifies the subject as 55979371. The Library of Congress control number is n2002127895. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1961, 1966 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gaye Adegbalola” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.