Alabama-born composer and Director of Music at the Tuskegee Institute from 1931–1955, William Dawson, in 1934 composed his only symphony, the "Negro Folk Symphony," about which he wrote: "The themes are taken from what are popularly known as Negro Spirituals. In this composition, the composer has employed three themes taken from typical melodies over which he has brooded since childhood, having learned them at his mother's knee" and that he wanted those who heard the music to know that it was "unmistakably not the work of a white man."

Dawson describes the three movements:

The first movement contains a simple musical motif that represents “the link [that] was taken out of a human chain when the first African was taken from the shores of his native land and sent to slavery.”

The 2nd movement, "Hope in the Night," is an "atmosphere of the humdrum life of a people whose bodies were baked by the sun and lashed with the whip for two hundred and fifty years; whose lives were proscribed before they were born."

The final movement quotes two spirituals, "O Le' Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning Star!" and "Hallelujah, Lord, I Been Down Into the Sea."

After a trip to West Africa in 1952, Dawson revised the Symphony with added African rhythms to convey a more authentic "rhythmic foundation strongly inspired by African influences.” The “Negro Folk Symphony” by William Dawson is today’s Midday Masterpiece at 2:00 pm.