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Historic Destination (26)

Central Nova - Truro

Town of Truro


Residents are locted in three main areas. Firstly, Upper/Lower Ford St. ("the Marsh"), were descendants of Black Loyalists and Refugees. Young St. ("theHill") has people from a number of different cultural and ethnic diversity. Black Loyalist descendants make up the vast majority of people in the third area, West Prince St. ("the Island").

Truro is also the birthplace of world renowned contralto Portia White (1911-1968). To support herself while taking music lessons at the Halifax Conservatory she taught school in Africville and Lucasville.

Her national debut occurred in 1941 at the Eaton Auditorium in Toronto. Her international debut came at the Town Hall in New York in 1944. Ms. White considered the highlight of her career to be a Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II at the opening of Confederation Centre in Charlottetown in 1964. One critic commented that Ms. White "has a magnificent vocal instrument [and] sufficient musicianship and intelligence to do what she wishes with it, [her voice possesses] a purity of tonal quality the like of which one encounters all too seldom." A monument in commemoration of Ms. Portia White stands on the grounds of the Zion Baptist Church.

 

Notable Spot

Zion United Baptist Church
454 West Prince Street
Truro

- Zion United Baptist Church, (est. 1896)

 

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