Roland Hayes, young Afro-American boy, came from the backwoods of Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. He walked all the way in his bare feet. To save his shoes, he carried them. He was ignorant and untaught. But he had a voice, and in a church choir a black physician heard him sing; the physician took him home after church and played a phonograph for him. And there, for the first time, this ignorant boy heard the voices of Caruso and Melba. "From that night," he said, "I knew I was destined to do something beyond my comprehension. It was as if something was calling me from far beyond the horizon. It was like a religious conversion. That night I was born again. It was like the opening of a door through which I glimpsed the rough outline of the purpose of which is now my whole life. A great happiness came over me. It was as if a bell rang in my soul."