The Fisk Jubilee Singers Tour to Save Their University

In the autumn of 1871, Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, faced imminent closure due to severe financial distress. Established only five years earlier by the American Missionary Association and regional partners to educate newly freed African Americans, the school possessed few resources to maintain operations. Seeking a way to stave off bankruptcy, George Leonard White, Fisk's treasurer and music director, assembled a nine-member vocal ensemble composed of students: Ella Sheppard, Maggie Porter, Minnie Tate, Jennie Jackson, Eliza Walker, Isaac Dickerson, Ben Holmes, Greene Evans, and Thomas Rutling. On October 6, 1871, this group set out on a concert tour to raise money for their institution.

Their initial performances began in Cincinnati, Ohio, but the group quickly encountered hardship. Following their Cincinnati concert, the singers chose to donate their modest profit to assist survivors of the Great Chicago Fire. Traveling farther into Ohio, they faced exhausted finances, substandard accommodations, and hostility from audiences and press unaccustomed to Black performers outside the derogatory conventions of minstrelsy. Seeking renewed focus, White proposed naming the ensemble the Jubilee Singers, drawing inspiration from the biblical year of jubilee in Leviticus, which celebrated emancipation from servitude, a theme directly reflecting the background of the singers and their families.