A Jubilee from Fisk

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
February 14th 2010
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“A Jubilee from Fisk”
Philippians 3:17-4:1

It was a horrible discovery. Her own daughter had been taught to spy on her. The mistress of the house was turning the child of Sarah Hannah Shepherd against her. Faced with this awful reality she grabbed the child and headed to the river to drown her own child. But God had other plans. Ella Shepherd would recall later that day;
She caught me in her arms, and while rushing to the river to end it all, was overtaken by Aunt Viney who cried out, ‘Don’t do it, Honey. Don’t you see the clouds of the Lord as they pass by? The Lord has got need of this child. My mother took courage... and walked back to slavery to await God's own time.
Because Sarah Shepherd listened to the voice of the wise aunt, Ella Shepherd went on to have audiences with kings and rulers in palaces and cathedrals. Truly God had a plan.
At emancipation came enormous challenges existed. At the top of the list was education. The hunger and passion for education meant that many teachers would be needed. The rise of freedman’s schools filled this need. One such school was Fisk University in Nashville. It has been said that Fisk was truly a university in name only. Meeting in an abandoned army hospital barracks, the new school faced serious financial difficulties in its early years. Facing these challenges the school’s treasurer, George White found a way.
George White was a member of the American Missionary Association from New York. He was brought in by the Association to keep Fisk viable. Unfortunately his qualification did not seem to meet the task. What’s skill set was that of choir master and band leader who’s true passion was music. Hardly the skills one thinks about when thinking about fiscal responsibility. But, these were just the skills needed. After months of writing letters to churches and trying to collect back tuition White realized that the school choir might just be the answer.
The Fisk choir was a talented group that was officially led by White. However, in practice the heart and soul of the group was a young teacher who had become the first black instructor at Fisk University. Her name was Ella Shepherd. White noticed Shepherd’s gifts for music and passion for education and at the age of only eighteen she became the assistant choir director. Together both Shepherd and White prepared the choir for a tour with the repertoire being white European Classical and other popular music of the day. Taking every last dollar in the school’s treasury they set out for a tour along the former Underground Railroad, beginning in Cincinnati
While the singers were well received, the offerings they collected were not even enough to cover expenses. Despite facing hardships, threats of violence, and little hope of success the choir kept on with one mission in mind, save Fisk University. As the journey continued something began to happen. With about seventeen numbers, mostly “white man's music,” the group would occasionally add a spiritual as encores. For these northern white audiences this was something that they had never experienced. When the choir noticed how people responded to the music they made a decision to arrange the music. That is where Ella Shepherd came in. While White would travel ahead to find lodging and drum up support, Shepherd would teach the singers, arranging new melodies, teaching them, practice the spirituals, and all the while they are performing night after night.
For the choir, the decision to include the spirituals was not an easy one. After all, as Ella Shepherd put it
The slave songs were associated with slavery and the dark past, and represented the things to be forgotten. They were sacred to our parents. We did not dream of ever using them in public. It was only after many months that gradually our hearts were opened to the wonderful beauty and power of our songs.
And it is because of this decision that the spirituals were first put down on paper. Before then they only existed in the collective memory of those who were formerly enslaved. If her mother had not listened to the voice of the prophet, who knows what might have happened to this treasury of great music.
Late in the fall, the choir found itself scheduled to perform at Oberlin College in Ohio in front of a national convention of influential ministers. At this gathering they left behind the cantatas and ballads and presented to that group the secret music that before this day had only been sung behind closed doors, the sacred songs of their mothers and fathers. It is recorded that when the singers began to sing their version of “Steal Away” something powerful happened.
And all of a sudden there was no talking. And then they said that you could hear soft weeping and the faces of the people reddened. And I'm sure that the Jubilee singers were joining them in tears, because sometimes when you think about what you are singing, particularly if you believe it, you can't help but be moved.
After that night the invitations came pouring in. Until this time they had not had an official name. On that night the decision was made to call them the Jubilee Singers, which was taken from Leviticus chapter twenty five. The Year of the Jubilee occurred every fiftieth year, and in the year of Jubilee were provisions for debt relief, provisions for redemption of property and for emancipation of slavery.
The Jubilee singers continued to face opposition and the school faced struggle but that was not the end of the story. Not only did the money come but the recognition led them to perform for President Grant, and even the Queen of England. And Missouri’s own Mark Twain said of their music: "I don’t know when anything has so moved me as did the plaintive melodies of the Jubilee Singers." They too performed throughout Europe and everywhere they went this new music moved people to tears.
What had once been the song that sustained behind closed doors became the very heart of the faith which turned humiliation into glory. The power of these songs to sustain the faithful in the most desperate times was made clear because of the gift of Ella Shepherd and the Jubilee singers from Fisk. In the end they sacrificed their health and well being. They suffered humiliation and hardship but pressed on for the goal to provide education and to sustain the faith. Their witness lives on in the songs but even more so in every person who has heard these songs and heard a word that kept them going another day. It is for that reason we have much to be thankful for to Aunt Viney who had a message from the Lord. And that is why we can join in the Jubilee. Amen.