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History
Founding
Fisk Free Colored School began on January 9, 1866.
In 1866, after the end of the American Civil War, leaders of the northern American Missionary Association (AMA): John Ogden, Reverend Erastus Milo Cravath, field secretary; and Reverend Edward Parmelee Smith, founded the Fisk Free Colored School, for the education of freedmen in Nashville. It was one of several schools and colleges that the AMA helped found. Enrollment jumped from 200 to 900 in the first several months of the school, indicating freedmen's strong desire for education, with ages of students ranging from seven to seventy.
The school was named in honor of General Clinton B. Fisk of the Tennessee Freedmen's Bureau, who made unused barracks available to the school, as well as establishing the first free schools for white and black children in Tennessee. In addition, he endowed Fisk with a total of $30,000. The American Missionary Association's work was supported by the United Church of Christ, which retains an affiliation with the university. Fisk opened to classes on January 9, 1866.
19th Century
Enrollment jumped from 200 to 900 in the first several months of the school's opening, indicating freedmen's strong desire for education. Student ages ranged from seven to seventy.
In 1867, the Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation to enable free public education, which caused a need to increase teacher training. The Fisk Free Colored School was reorganized and incorporated as Fisk University to focus on higher education the same year.[1][2] James Dallas Burrus, John Houston Burrus, Virginia E. Walker, and America W. Robinson enrolled in 1867 and were its first four students. In 1875, the two Burruses and Walker became the first African-American students to graduate from a liberal arts college south of the Mason–Dixon line.[3][4]
In 1870 Adam Knight Spence became the school's principal. To raise money for the school's initiatives, his wife Catherine Mackie Spence traveled throughout the United States to set up mission Sunday schools in support of Fisk students, organizing endowments through the AMA.[5] With a strong interest in religion and the arts, Adam Spence supported the start of a student choir; they were the start of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
In 1871, the choir went on tour to raise funds to develop a new and larger campus, led by professor and university treasurer George L. White.[2][6] They toured the U.S. and Europe and became a sensation, singing before Ulysses S. Grant, Mark Twain, Queen Victoria, popularizing spirituals, and changing racial stereotypes[7][8] Their tour raised nearly $50,000 and funded construction of the renowned Jubilee Hall on Fisk's current campus in north Nashville. It was the first building built for the education of freedmen in the South and is now a National Historic Landmark.[9]
Cravath returned to Fisk in 1875 and became the university's first president.[INSERT CITATION] He oversaw an active construction program
- ^ "Fisk University History". Fisk University. Retrieved 2020-06-20.
- ^ a b Randal Rust. "Fisk University". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2020-06-20.
- ^ Richardson, Joe M. "A negro success story: James Dallas Burrus". The Journal of Negro History 50, no. 4 (1965): 274–282.
- ^ "Blacks and the American Missionary Association". United Church of Christ. Retrieved 2020-06-20.
- ^ Biographical note: Adam Knight Spence, Spence Family Collection, Fisk University Library, accessed 3 Mar 2009. Link via the Internet Archive, accessed 15 August 2013.
- ^ Thanki, Juli. "141 years later, Fisk Jubilee Singers return to England". The Tennessean. Retrieved 2020-06-20.
- ^ Mitchell, Reavis L., Jr., Fisk University, The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2002, accessed 3 Mar 2009
- ^ "Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2020-06-20.
- ^ "Fisk University", The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2002, accessed 3 Mar 2009. Quote: "When the American Missionary Association declined to assume the financial responsibility of the Jubilee Singers, Professor George L. White, Treasurer of the University, took the responsibility upon himself and started North in 1871 with his troupe. On April 12, 1873, the Jubilee Singers sailed for England where they sang before a fashionable audience in the presence of the Queen, who expressed her gratification at the performance."