Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was an English composer, performer, and educator who visited the US three times (1904, 1906, 1910) and had a major impact on Black American composers during the early 20^th century.  A group of Black singers in Washington, D.C., for example, were so inspired by his compositions that they formed the Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society. During his first visit to the US, the composer conducted the ensemble (performing his compositions), and in 1906 mounted a concert tour with them. He also later toured with the Black singer Harry Burleigh. Coleridge-Taylor believed that his mission was to help establish the dignity of Black Americans, and many Black American musicians looked to him for inspiration. Although he considered immigrating to the US, he remained in the UK, but was greatly influenced by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and—especially--the poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, whom he met in 1897. His most famous composition, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (1898) is a setting of a portion of The Song of Hiawatha, by the American poet Heny Wadsworth Longfellow.