Dent Family papers addendum

Classical concert pianist, educator and devoted community leader, Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent worked tirelessly to assist others throughout her career. She graduated from Oberlin Conservatory of Music; was a fellow of the Juilliard Musical Foundation of New York; wife of Albert Walter Dent, president of Dillard University; mother of three sons, Thomas Covington, Benjamin Albert and Walter Jesse Dent; active in many civic and community organizations; and recipient of numerous awards, honors and citations.

Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent was born on May 19, 1904 to Benjamin Jesse and Jennie Belle (Murphy) Covington of Houston, Texas. At the age of two, Jessie Covington showed signs of musical talent, and at the age of five began piano and violin lesions. She received her first musical training under the tutorship of Madame Corilla Rochon, Houston’s most popular music teacher, and violin lessons under Willie Nickerson, brother of the famed Camille Nickerson. At the age of eleven, Covington played the violin in an all-women’s orchestra. She also played piano for the Sunday school at Bethel Baptist Church for two dollars a month.

Jessie Covington graduated from Houston Elementary School in 1916 at the age of twelve. She received her diploma from Washington High School in 1920 and graduated valedictorian of her class. That same year, Jessie Covington entered the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and received a bachelor of music degree in 1924. During her time at Oberlin, Jessie Covington distinguished herself by becoming a charter member of the Oberlin Chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, an honorary musical fraternity, and by appearing with the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra for her senior recital.

Praised for her musicianship, Jessie Covington received many fellowships, awards and other accomplishments for her work. From 1924 to 1928, Covington was awarded four consecutive fellowships from the Juilliard Musical Foundation, New York. She was told about a newly formed music school for graduate students in New York City called the Juilliard Musical Foundation, which awarded fellowships of $1,000 each to students through competition. Jessie Covington auditioned for one of the fellowships and won for four consecutive years. She studied with eminent artist-teachers Olga Samaroff Stokowski and James Frisken. Ernestine Jessie Covington was the first African American and the first woman to attend Juilliard.

During her stint in New York, Jessie Covington organized the first Black choir to sing at the Southern Baptist Convention in 1926. The same year, she became a charter member of the Theta Chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda Society, an honorary fraternity of musicians at Oberlin College. She was also engaged in private teaching, radio performances and concertizing.

In 1928, Jessie Covington returned home to Houston and opened a private studio teaching piano. A year later, she traveled as accompanist and piano soloist with Madame Florence Cole Talbert, who composed the music for the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority National Hymn. She served as head of the piano department at Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, for two years. During this time, she was a member of the faculty of the Summer School of Music under the auspices of the Texas Association of Negro Musicians. Additionally, Jessie Covington served as a charter member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., New Orleans chapter.

Ernestine Jessie Covington married Albert Walter Dent in 1931, and a year later moved to New Orleans when her husband became superintendent of Flint-Goodridge Hospital. The next year, she had her first son, Thomas Covington Dent. In 1933, she returned to Oberlin on a Rosenwald grant to continue her studies, and received a master of music degree, for which she presented a recital accompanied by the Conservatory Orchestra and wrote her thesis on Franz Liszt. She later had two other sons: Benjamin Albert Dent (1937) and Walter Jesse Dent (1939).

From 1935 to the mid to late seventies was a pivotal moment in Jessie Dent’s contribution to civic and community organizations. Spanning four decades of community engagement, Jessie Dent assisted in establishing undergraduate sorority chapters of Delta Beta Gamma at Dillard University and Gamma Alpha at Xavier University; served as a charter member of Alpha Sigma Theta chapter; was inducted into Who’s Who in Colored America; founded the Ebony Fashion Fair in support of Flint-Goodridge Hospital; and served as a charter member of Dillard Women’s Club. In 1968 the club hosted a testimonial in her honor; and from 1971 to 1976, Jessie served as a board member of the New Orleans Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. Jessie was instrumental in desegregating orchestra concerts in New Orleans.

Throughout her adult life, Jessie Covington Dent supported the effort of minority classical musicians to increase their number in major symphony orchestras and in teaching positions. In 1985, she was the first recipient of the Amistad Research Center Fine Arts Award in recognition of her contributions to education, culture and community service. In 1998 Dillard University created the Jessie Covington Dent Music Festival in her honor.

Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent died on March 10, 2001 in New Orleans, Louisiana.



Albert Walter Dent

Educator, hospital administrator and president of Dillard University, Albert Walter Dent played a significant role in the development of Dillard University and affected the lives of many African American students who became civil rights activists and leaders. He was also involved in several organizations, including the formation of the United Negro College Fund, an educational assistance organization that provides funds to 41 private historically black member colleges and universities.

Albert Walter Dent was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 25, 1904. His father was a day laborer who died shortly before his birth; his mother was a domestic worker who also worked several jobs to support the family. Upon graduation from high school, Dent enrolled at Morehouse College where he majored in business administration and was active in student affairs, such as the basketball team, glee club, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and orchestra, and served as auditor of the Athletic Association. In addition to these activities, Dent worked at the Atlanta Life Insurance Company as an auditor. After graduating in 1926 with a degree in accounting, Dent became a branch office auditor for Atlanta Life. In 1927, Dent joined the Safety Construction Company in Houston, Texas, as its vice president. In 1931, at the urging of John Hope, president of Morehouse College, Dent returned to the university as its alumni secretary and director of its endowment campaign. During that same year, Dent married Ernestine Jessie Covington, the only daughter of Dr. Benjamin Jesse Covington and Jennie Belle Covington. Dr. Benjamin Jesse Covington was a noted Houston physician. Jessie graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and received a fellowship to the Julliard Graduate School of Music in New York City, where she studied piano for four years. The Dents had three sons: Thomas Covington, Benjamin Albert and Walter Jesse.

While working at Morehouse College, Dent met Will W. Alexander, the acting president of Dillard University. In 1932, Alexander hired Dent as the superintendent of Flint-Goodridge Hospital in New Orleans. Dillard University and hospital grew out of the merger of Straight College, an American Missionary Association (AMA) school, and New Orleans University, under the Methodist Episcopal Church. Representatives of the two schools, the Rosenwald Fund, the General Education Board (GEB) as well as local white residents met in New Orleans February 21-22, 1929 to agree to abandon Straight College and New Orleans University campuses for a new consolidated campus and hospital. The hospital’s construction was scheduled first, and it retained the name of Flint-Goodridge. The resulting institution of higher learning was opened in 1935 and named Dillard University after James Hardy Dillard, a former professor at Tulane University and a well-known advocate of Black education.

The new, well-equipped hospital opened in February 1932. Flint-Goodridge was designed for the dual purpose of meeting the medical needs of Black New Orleanians and serving as a teaching hospital for Black physicians and nurses. In 1932, New Orleans had thirty-five licensed Black doctors and Flint-Goodridge was the only hospital in New Orleans where they could practice.

In 1935, Edgar B. Stern, an organizer of Dillard University, Flint-Goodridge Hospital, and the Bureau for Governmental Research, recommended that the Dillard board of trustees assign Dent additional responsibility as business manager of the university. Dent served in this dual capacity as superintendent of Flint-Goodridge Hospital and business manager of Dillard University until 1941.

In 1936, Dent introduced the “Penny-A-Day” hospitalization plan. The “Penny-A-Day” plan was the predecessor to all health insurance plans in the United States. For a $3.65 yearly premium, the plan guaranteed up to twenty-one days of hospitalization each year. More than 100 New Orleans employers cooperated and allowed their workers to use payroll deduction for plan membership. By December 1938, 3,231 people had joined the plan. The Penny-A-Day program continued until 1943, when Flint-Goodridge joined the Hospital Association of New Orleans’ citywide insurance plan. Under Dent’s leadership, Flint-Goodridge not only made its presence felt in New Orleans, but the hospital also actively promoted better standards of health care in other parts of the country, and, as a result, Dent was elected a fellow of the American College of Hospital Administrators, the first African American so honored.

On May 31, 1941, Dent was elected the third president of Dillard University, a position he held for 28 years. Dent proved to be as efficient in the management of the university as he had been at the hospital. He strengthened the faculty, increased the academic offerings, raised the endowment and established a college nursing program. The college of nursing program was a five-year program that led to a bachelor of science degree and was the first nationally accredited college nursing program in Louisiana. Dent also completed Dillard University’s building program, which consisted of renovating and enlarging buildings and the construction of new buildings on campus.

Dent and Stern met with representatives of the American Missionary Association (AMA), the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Rosenwald Fund and the GEB and appealed for help in securing a $3,000,000 endowment. In June 1944, Dent announced the successful completion of the endowment. Ten years later the endowment had increased to $4,500,000. Dent consequently became widely known for his money-raising skills. This reputation and his close relationship with various philanthropic foundations resulted in his appointment to a national planning committee, which established the United Negro College Fund in 1944. The United Negro College Fund is a fund that raises money for the 41 member institutions’ operating expenses, including teacher salaries, scholarships and education equipment. It also manages the endowment funds and finances the construction, expansion and maintenance of physical plants at the member institutions. Dent was chairman of the fund from 1965 to 1970.

In 1948, Dent was elected president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes. He was on the boards of the National Merit Scholarship Program and the Committee on Faculty Fellowships of the Ford Fund for the Advancement of Education, and a board member of the American Council of Education.

Dent retired from Dillard University in 1969 after twenty-eight years of service, but remained a consultant. After his retirement Dent continued his pace of involvement with several boards, charities and civic organizations. In 1973, Dillard University dedicated its new health and physical education building to Dent, renaming it Albert Walter Dent Hall.