 Throughout her teenage years, she remained active in her church's musical activities, now heavily involved in the adult choir.She joined the Baptists' Young People's Union and the Camp Fire Girls which provided her with some limited musical opportunities.Eventually, the directors of the People's Chorus and the pastor of her church, Reverend Wesley Parks, along with other leaders of the black community, raised the money she needed to get singing lessons with Mary Saunders Patterson and to attend South Philadelphia High School, from which she graduated in 1921.