# Fisk Jubilee Singers

- By: Unidentified Artist
- Date: 1872
- Medium: Albumen silver print
- Classification: Photographs
- Dimensions: Image/Sheet: 5.8 x 9.2cm (2 5/16 x 3 5/8")
- Credit line: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_S_NPG.97.175)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/677042506a3f3dd6adc4ca047534ec06.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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.