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Fisk Jubilee Singers
1872
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Classification
- Photographs
- Dimensions
- Image/Sheet: 5.8 x 9.2cm (2 5/16 x 3 5/8")
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery
- Credit line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Through concerts in cities large and small, these nine original members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers were among the first performers to introduce white audiences to a repertoire of authentic African American spirituals. The Fisk Free Colored School (now Fisk University) in Nashville, Tennessee, opened in 1866 to offer a liberal arts education to formerly enslaved men, women, and children. Five years later, a lack of resources threatened Fisk’s survival. In response, the school’s treasurer and choir director organized a choral ensemble and launched a national tour to raise funds.
