Discover how a group of former slaves saved their school by singing in the decade after the Civil War. The Fisk Jubilee Singers battled prejudice and oppression to sing their way into the world’s heart in a series of concerts in the U.S. and Europe.
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12:32 pm UTC Feb. 19, 2021
The famed Jubilee Singers of Fisk University rehearse May 10, 1952, for an upcoming concert.
Photo: Robert C. Holt Jr., The Tennessean, Illustration: Brian Gray, USA TODAY Network
As the National Museum of African American Music opens its doors, journalists from the USA TODAY Network explore the stories, places and people who helped make music what it is today in our expansive series, Hallowed Sound.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Steal away, steal away home, I hain t got long to stay here.”
In the mid-19th century, you’d hear those words echoing across the fields of Oklahoma, as Wallace Willis and other slaves sang while they worked in the state’s Indian Territory.