FROM
A LEGACY OF HOPE IN THE CONCERT SPIRITUALS OF ROBERT NATHANIEL DETT AND WILLIAM DAWSON
BY JEFF STONE
Jubilee Songs
Until the late nineteenth century, jubilee songs (spirituals) were an unknown genre of music. Even among some African Americans the music was not known. For the African Americans that knew the songs, and the conditions that created them, many did not wish for them to be shared. Some feared that minstrelsy would taint the history of these songs . Others felt that the “institution of slavery had been so degrading to them and their ancestors” that it would be best to ignore them all together because of their association to the past (slavery).[1] Despite objections, the world was introduced to jubilee songs.
Jubilee choirs emerged from schools in the South that were created for the purpose of providing education to newly freed slaves. These schools were under constant threat of closing due to financial difficulties in funding as well as antipathy from Southern whites that actively sought to close such schools. However, the jubilee choirs associated with these schools contributed financially through tours and concerts of jubilee songs.
Jubilee choirs from these Southern schools introduced concert spirituals to the world as jubilee songs. The first and most significant of these Jubilee choirs are the singers from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. On October 6, 1871, George L. White (1838-1895) and nine of his music students from Fisk University, eight of which were former slaves, set out on a concert tour in hopes of raising funds for their school.[2] Twentieth and twenty-first century scholars have produced several studies of the events that led to this day and those that would follow. These studies affirm the importance of what would become the Fisk Jubilee Singers and their introduction of concert spirituals (jubilee songs) to the United States and the world. More entries, such as the ensembles of Hampton Singers and Fairfield Normal Institute, also toured and performed spirituals as early as 1872. By the end of 1873, several more touring ensembles would saturate concert halls with jubilee songs.”[3]
The term jubilee references the Jewish year of jubilee when all slaves were set free. In addition to the term being synonymous with spirituals, “jubilee” was included in the title of several touring ensembles (e.g., Fisk Jubilee, Canaan Jubilee, etc.). By using the word “jubilee,” these groups separated themselves from minstrel music and shows.[4] To change the perceptions of African American culture, these early Jubilee choirs had to struggle against associations to minstrel music and ensembles. These ensembles branded themselves through their music (spirituals/jubilee songs) an image that brought a new perspective to African American music and culture.
The new “brand” of African American ensembles represented a different degree of respectability for African American music, and gained acceptance from both white and black audiences. James Weldon Johnson claimed that jubilee choirs “constituted both an artistic sensation and a financial success, neither of which results could have been attained had their songs been mere imitations of European folk music or adaptations of European airs.”[5] I interpret this to mean that even though there existed efforts to assimilate aspects of perceived white culture—within the musical characteristics of the music—these ensembles were still distinctly a development of African American culture.
History scholars of the twentieth century debated the degree of assimilation of white culture that is present in the jubilee choirs and songs (spirituals).[6] Most tend to agree or recognize that jubilee choirs opposed the pervading social perceptions of African Americans. Regardless of their position, their research considers jubilee choirs and jubilee songs as important influence for redefining perspectives of African American culture to the United States.
–Jeff Stone
[1] Tilford Brooks, America’s Black Musical Heritage, 181.
[2] John Lovell, Jr., Black Song: The Forge and the Flame, 402.
[3] Graham, “The Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Concert Spiritual,” 317.
[4] Andrew Ward, Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Jubilee Singers, Who Introduced the World to the Music of Black America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), 139.
[5] James Weldon Johnson, The Book of American Negro Spirituals (New York: Viking Press, 1925), 1:17.
[6] John Lovell provides an excellent discourse that includes nineteenth and twentieth century scholars and sources that contributed to this debate. See chapters six through thirteen in Black Song: The Forge and the Flame (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 24-126.