Ain't A That Good News: The Fisk Jubliee Singers in Concert
In 1871, George L. White, the treasurer of Fisk University, heard a choir of nine young Black people from the struggling college for children of freed slaves. They set out on an uncertain journey to raise funds for the struggling Fisk school in Nashville, Tennessee. This group travelled around the United States and throughout Europe performing Negro spirituals. To everyone's surprise, the singers were successful in their endeavors. These young people were the first to be known as the "Fisk University Jubilee Singers." For over 125 years the Jubilee Singers have brought the rich, diverse, and painful heritage of the Negro spiritual to the world stage. In the process, they saved Fisk University and established the Negro spiritual as a rich historical art form.