Portia White, a teacher and musician of African-Nova Scotian descent, achieved international fame as a classical concert singer in the 1940s and 1950s. Her musical talent was nurtured by her family, her church, her community, her friends and by the Nova Scotia Talent Trust which was especially supportive of her burgeoning career.

Portia White was born in Truro in 1911, the third child in a family of 11. Her father, a Baptist minister, became the first black graduate of Acadia University in 1906. The same year he married Izie Dora White. After World War I, the family moved to Halifax where her father became the minister at Cornwallis Street Baptist Church. Portia joined the choir at her father's church when she was six years old, along with her brothers and sisters. The Depression of the 1930s brought further musical opportunities for the White family when their father organized weekly concerts at a local theatre to help support the church. Portia's oldest sister Helena was the organist for the concerts; Portia herself was the choir director. In the early 1930s, after completing her teacher training at Dalhousie University, Portia White began teaching school in Lucasville, a black community just outside Halifax and continued her musical training at the Halifax Conservatory with the support of the Halifax Ladies Musical Club.

White gave her first recital in June 1939, and during the war she performed often in concerts and on radio, gaining experience and confidence. Younger members of the family formed the White Quartette and performed regularly for the troops in Halifax. In the summer of 1941, White met Edith Read, a Halifax native, who was the principal of Branksome Hall, a private girls' school in Toronto. Read was very impressed with White and made arrangements for her Toronto debut at the Eaton Auditorium. It was the first of several appearances on the Toronto concert stage over the next two years.

New York was next, and in 1944 Edith Read arranged an audition with Edward Johnson, the Canadian-born general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. In March, Portia White had her debut concert at the New York Town Hall before a packed audience. A second Town Hall concert was held in October, and the New York headline read "An Unheralded Star is Born." White was praised for her voice, musicianship, diction, and poised and gracious stage presence. White's repertoire was a mixture of European classics, which she sang very well, and Negro spirituals with which most critics and audiences felt she really excelled.

Portia White's international career was unfortunately quite brief. Between 1945 and 1948 she toured extensively in Canada, the United States and Latin America, but in 1946 she experienced a slight rasp in her voice, the first signs of vocal trouble. She was not well served by her agent, Columbia Concerts. Her itinerary was gruelling, and she received only modest pay and was responsible for her own personal expenses. By 1952 Portia White had given up the concert stage and retired to Toronto to teach music. In 1955 she made a rare return visit to Halifax to sing to a packed house at the Lord Nelson Hotel ballroom. Two years later she gave another concern in Halifax at the Queen Elizabeth High School auditorium, and soon after announced she was resuming her concert career. After 1960, however, she gave only a handful of concerts. One of these, which she regarded as the crowning achievement of her career, was a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II at the Confederation Centre in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

Portia White was often called Canada's Marian Anderson after a noted African American singer, and like Anderson, White encountered racism. Some concert halls in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario refused to allow her to perform in the early stages of her career. She was once refused a hotel room in Halifax because they "didn't allow Negroes" to stay there. However White did not speak out publicly against racism; it was through her career as a musician that Portia White most effectively combatted racism.

Portia White's last public appearance was at the World Baptist Federation conference in July 1967. She died in Toronto in February 1968. In 1997 the Nova Scotia government created a special award for artists in her memory, a fitting tribute to a remarkable woman who had contributed so significantly to the musical life of her community and the world.