On May 23rd 1882, President Rutherford B. Hayes wrote in his diary that the Fisk Jubilee Singers had stayed at Spiegel Grove for two days, following their "successful concert." Hayes was not the first president for whom the Jubilee Singers had performed. Touring the world for more than a decade, the group had sung for other presidents as well as for queens, ministers, prisoners, patients, and for thousands of concert goers.
They were students at Nashville's Fisk University The American Missionary Association founded the school in 1866 on the grounds of an old hospital used by Union troops during the Civil War. The goal was to educate former slaves and other young African Americans.. Five years later, Fisk was functioning but teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Its treasurer and music director George White scraped together what funds he could to take some of his best singers on tour for a fundraising effort for Fisk.
The American Missionary Association was opposed. Concerned about its reputation, the AMA viewed the singers as Fisk's ambassadors for its educational mission. Eventually, the organization relented, but demanded that performances, demeanor, and dress must be impeccable. This was not lost on President Hayes years later who wrote that "Miss [Mattie] Lawrence ladylike and intelligent and even more so Miss [Ella] Sheppard."
On October 6, 1871, White took his singers to Cincinnati, then Columbus, and on to Oberlin, following the old path of the Underground Railroad. The acapella ensemble, some of them teens and all but two born into slavery, had shared their "slave songs" with White. Soprano, arranger, and Fisk's first black instructor Ella Sheppard wrote, "At first the slave songs were never sung in public, they were sacred to our parents." White deeply valued their songs and asked his singers to teach him the songs of their parents. He called the group the Jubilee Singers, referring to the Old Testament's Jewish year of Jubilee.
As they toured New York and New England's churches and concert halls, their largely white audiences grew to appreciate the sacred songs that the group first performed only as encores. After touring for eight months, the Jubilee Singers returned to Fisk, having raised $40,000.
The following year, the Singers continued to hold performances in the U.S. and then spent nearly a year touring England. In 1875, the Jubilee Singers embarked on a three-year European tour. But non-stop travel, discrimination, poor accommodations, exhaustion, illness, grueling practices, and discord took its toll among the members.
Forced to re-organize in 1879, the Jubilee Singers set out once again under the direction of White and singer Frederick Loudin. During the 1880s, they performed in Australia, Asia, New Zealand, and throughout the American West. The Singers raised $150,000 for Fisk University and its Jubilee Hall.
The Jubilee Singers have continued to sing to this day, receiving awards and accolades from around the world. In 2008, President George-W-Bush presented the Singers with the National Medal of the Arts. They are recognized for preserving the musical tradition known today as Negro Spirituals. You can listen to their songs at fiskjubileesingers.org.
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