Etta Moten Barnett
Weimar, Colorado County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Weimar native Etta Moten (1901-2004) was one of the most acclaimed African American women of the twentieth century. At an early age, she began singing in local African Methodist Episcopal churches where her father pastored. In 1916, she moved with her family to Kansas City, Mo., and later earned her degree in Voice and Drama at the University of Kansas. After moving to New York City in the 1930s, she came in contact with leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.After starring in several Broadway shows and radio programs, Etta made her way to Hollywood, where she had a breakthrough role in Gold Diggers of 1933. A show at the Fox Theatre in Washington, D.C. brought her to the attention of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who invited her to sing for the President the following night. On January 30, 1934, Etta Moten became the first African American woman to give a performance at the White House. She performed a set of songs requested by Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt as part of the celebration of his birthday. Later that year, she married noted journalist Claude Barnett (1889-1967), who owned the Associated Negro Press.For decades Etta remained active in civil rights organizations such as the National Council of Negro Women and participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. As an award-winning entertainer, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and named by the Texas Women's Chamber of Commerce as one of Texas' 100 Most Influential Women. She retired to Chicago and devoted the rest of her life to fostering interracial and interreligious understanding. Etta died at the age of 102. She is remembered today for breaking color barriers in the entertainment industry and for furthering civil liberties. (2019)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Weimar in 1901, Etta Moten began singing in the AME churches her father pastored and rose to become one of the most acclaimed African American performers of the twentieth century. After a breakthrough role in Gold Diggers of 1933, she made history on January 30, 1934, as the first African American woman to perform at the White House, singing for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Married to Associated Negro Press founder Claude Barnett, she marched in Washington in 1963 and championed civil rights and interfaith understanding until her death at 102.
Why it matters
Etta Moten Barnett broke color barriers on Broadway, in Hollywood, and at the White House itself, embodying the reach of the Harlem Renaissance and the long fight for equal recognition in American cultural life.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Etta Moten was born in Weimar, Texas, in 1901, into an America still sharply divided by segregation and into the heart of Black church life. Her father was a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal tradition, and it was in those local AME congregations that she first began to sing. For a gifted Black child at the turn of the century, the church was often the first and most welcoming stage.
In 1916 her family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and Etta's world widened. She went on to earn a degree in voice and drama at the University of Kansas — a serious formal training that set her apart and prepared her for a professional career at a time when few doors were open to African American performers.
When she reached New York in the 1930s, she stepped into one of the most extraordinary cultural moments in American history. The Harlem Renaissance was flowering, and she came into contact with leading figures of that world, including the writers Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. It was an era in which Black artistry demanded — and increasingly won — national attention.
People & events
From that foundation, Etta Moten built a career that crossed nearly every stage America had to offer. She starred in Broadway shows and appeared on radio programs before making her way to Hollywood, where she earned a breakthrough role in the film Gold Diggers of 1933 — a rare and visible achievement for a Black woman in the movies of that day.
Her talent carried her to the very center of national life. A performance at the Fox Theatre in Washington, D.C., brought her to the attention of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who invited her to sing for the President. On January 30, 1934, as part of a celebration of Franklin Roosevelt's birthday, Etta Moten performed a set of songs the Roosevelts themselves had requested — and she is remembered as the first African American woman to give a performance at the White House.
Later that year she married the noted journalist Claude Barnett, who owned the Associated Negro Press, the influential news service that supplied Black newspapers across the country. As Etta Moten Barnett, she remained active for decades in civil rights work, including with the National Council of Negro Women, and she took part in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Its place in the American story
Etta Moten Barnett's life traces the widening of American cultural space for Black performers across the 20th century. Broadway, Hollywood, and finally the White House itself — each was a barrier, and she is remembered for crossing them. Her career embodied the reach and ambition of the Harlem Renaissance: the insistence that Black artistry belonged not at the margins of American culture but at its center.
Her marriage to Claude Barnett placed her at the intersection of art and the Black press, one of the era's most powerful instruments for informing and organizing African American communities. And her presence at the 1963 March on Washington links the cultural achievements of the 1930s to the mass civil rights movement of the 1960s — one long continuous struggle for equal recognition.
Honored as an award-winning entertainer, inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, and later named among Texas' most influential women, she spent her final decades in Chicago fostering interracial and interreligious understanding. She died at 102, a life long enough to span from Jim Crow's height to a transformed nation — and a reminder that cultural barriers and political ones fall together.
If you visit
The marker honoring Etta Moten Barnett stands in Weimar, the small Colorado County town on the route between Houston and San Antonio where she was born in 1901. It's a modest setting for a life that reached Broadway, Hollywood, and the White House — and that contrast is exactly what makes it worth the stop.
Standing here, let yourself feel the distance she traveled. A pastor's daughter, singing first in local AME churches in this very community, went on to perform for a President and to march for freedom in the nation's capital. The marker asks you to hold both truths at once: the smallness of the starting point and the enormousness of the journey.
Weimar rewards travelers curious about the people a place produces. If you're following markers along this corridor of central Texas, this one stands apart from the pioneers and settlers nearby — a 20th-century story of art and civil rights rooted in a small Texas town. Take a moment to consider that a voice first raised in a country church carried all the way to the center of American public life.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Etta Moten Barnett
- · Claude Barnett
Themes & tags
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