The Fisk Jubilee Singers

Fisk University was founded in 1865 in Nashville, Tennessee originally as an elementary and normal school for freedmen. It opened in former Union hospital barracks. Fisk University was incorporated in 1867 to train Black teachers. The Fisk Jubilee Singers, also founded in 1867, helped to raise money for the University. The Singers popularized Negro spirituals among both white and Black audiences in the United States and in Europe. An 1885 travel logbook identifies each city, county, and  performance hall where the group performed in Europe.

Left. Fisk Jubilee Singers, ca. 1870s. Prints & Photographs Department, MSRC.

Fisk University, ca. 1866. Known as Fisk School or Fisk Free Colored School before incorporation as Fisk University. Prints& Photographs Department, MSRC.

continued on next page>