She co-founded the Rose McClendon Players with her husband, Dick Campbell and was one of the leading black concert singers of the mid-20th century.

[3][4] After her father died, she moved with her mother to New York City, where Bessie met and married Cornelius M. Battey, who became director of photography of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

She was also educated at Columbia University and studied voice at Juilliard School of Music.

[7] Later stage credits included the off-Broadway production of Sara Reavin's melodrama The Ivory Branch with Diana Barrymore.

[9] Rahn died on August 8, 1961, at Sydenham Hospital in New York City from lung cancer.