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Quarter 3, 2017
Little Known Black History Fact
Philippa Schuyler
Philippa Schuyler was a pianist child prodigy, born on August 2,1931. She composed
a famous piece called “Harlem’s Mozart: The Shirley Temple of American Negroes.”
Born to a black journalist and a white daughter of a Texas ranger, (who had at one
time, worked as a bathing beauty for a local slave owner), Philippa’s parents were
determined to use their daughter as a poster child for integration. Her mother, Jose-
phine Cogdell, raised her daughter on raw meat, vegetables and cod liver oil, believ-
ing that it would make her more of a genius.
Her mother even wrote publicly about her experience in being with a black man in “The Messenger” publication.
Philippa’s parents saw promise in her only four weeks after she was born, when she began to crawl. She was
reading and writing by age two. By the time she was four years old, she was playing her own piano compositions
on the local radio station. With an IQ of 180 at seven, Philippa graduated from elementary school at ten years
old. At the young age of 13, she had written 100 music compositions for orchestra. Her first piece, “Manhattan
Nocturne”, was performed by the New York Philharmonic in 1944. Cogdell was known to issue tough love to
her daughter, demanding perfection with little affection.
Though she performed countless concerts overseas as an adolescent, Philippa was unhappy with her childhood.
She had even developed different personas overseas, passing for women of different races, depending on the sit-
uation. Feeling as if her life was an experiment by her parents, she would play until she reached her thirties, then
discovered journalism and followed in her father’s footsteps. However, she would pass herself off as Spanish to
escape her parents’ values.
Philippa Schuyler traveled to Vietnam during the war in 1967 as a war correspondent. She also worked as a
Catholic lay worker, ferrying orphans to safety from Hue to Da Nang. During a helicopter mission to evacuate
the orphans, her helicopter crashed into the sea. Even though she survived the crash, she couldn’t swim and
drowned. It was later discovered that the accident was the fault of the pilot and could’ve been avoided.
Philippa Schuyler died on May 9, 1967 at age 35. Prior to her passing, she had openly addressed her issues with
her mother’s choice of upbringing in a written letter, accusing her of imposing impossible expectations upon her
daughter. In 1969, Jody Cogdell Schuyler (Philippa’s mother) committed suicide.