![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static01.nyt.com/packages/flash/multimedia/ICONS/transparent.png)
Barbara Smith Conrad at her home in Manhattan in 2011.
Robert Caplin for The New York Times; thumbnail, via University of Texas at Austin, 1976
Barbara Smith Conrad
Died on May 22, 2017 at age 79
As a 19-year-old mezzo-soprano Ms. Smith was forced out of an opera at the University of Texas because she was black. The incident sparked a national outcry, but Ms. Smith graduated from the university and performed at major opera houses around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Notable Deaths 2017
Remembering Mary Tyler Moore, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, David Rockefeller, Trisha Brown, Glen Campbell, Dick Gregory, Edith Windsor, Sam Shepard, Tom Petty and many others who died this year.