Most people remember Michael Jackson as one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived. But Anita Hill remembers him as a little boy who loved to sing. Here’s Hill’s little-known connection to Jackson.
In the early 1960s, Hill was a young music teacher in Gary, Indiana. She would go on to teach more than 1,000 kids in her career. But one voice stopped Hill in her tracks.
“Whose extraordinary voice is that?” she wondered. It belonged to Michael, whose sound seemed too big to be coming out of such a small boy. She immediately told him he was joining her choir, and his eyes sparkled.
He showed up at every practice, ready to sing. When he got in trouble with his teachers for loving singing more than studying, the threat of being put out of the choir got him to hit the books. The first time Michael’s parents heard him sing was at a PTA program, where Hill had him sing “Climb Every Mountain.” The rest is music history.
To discover more stories like this, check out For the Record, a national Black oral history project created by Capital B and PushBlack to preserve the stories, memories, and voices of Black America. Add your story to the archive today.