Jubilee Singers (Fisk University)

The Fisk Jubilee Singers originated with nine students, Isaac Dickerson, Maggie Porter, Minnie Tate, Jennie Jackson, Benjamin Holmes, Thomas Rutling, Eliza Walker, Green Evans, and Ella Sheppard, who set out on a concert tour of the North on 6 Oct. 1871 to save the financially ailing Fisk University; idea to form the group was conceived by George L. White, Fisk University's white treasurer; because the University disapproved of the idea, White had to borrow money for the tour; White gave the group the name Jubilee Singers in memory of the Jewish Year of Jubilee.

From the description of Jubilee Singers records, 1871-1947. (Fisk University). WorldCat record id: 70970121

The Fisk Jubilee Singers originated with nine students who set out on a concert tour of the North on 6 Oct. 1871 to save the financially ailing Fisk University; idea to form the group was conceived by George L. White, Fisk University's treasurer.

From the description of European Tour collection, 1873-1878 (bulk, 1875-1877). (Fisk University). WorldCat record id: 70975196

Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, opened in January 1866, was one of seven chartered institutions founded by the American Missionary Association of New York specifically to educate and assist Southern African-Americans in the period immediately following the civil war. It was named in honor of General Clinton B. Fisk of the Tennessee Freedmen's Bureau. In 1870 George L. White, Fisk treasurer and music professor, created a nine-member student choral ensemble -- the Jubilee Singers -- and took them on tour to earn money for the University. Initially the group sang only ballads and patriotic anthems, but White suggested adding spirituals and other songs traditional to the Southern African-American experience, making the Jubilee Singers the first group to publicly perform the songs of slaves.

In 1872 the Jubilee Singers sang at the World Peace Festival in Boston and President Ulysses S. Grant invited them to perform at the White House. In 1873 the group toured Europe, raising enough funds to erect the school's first permanent building, Jubilee Hall; one entire wall of the Hall is a portrait of the original Jubilee Singers. The portrait was commissioned by Queen Victoria as a gift following the tour.

From the guide to the Jubilee Singers Concert Program, 1940, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)