Fisk University Embraces 150 Years Of History — But Wants To Move Past Financial Troubles

Fisk University in Nashville is one of the most storied institutions in the country.

It was founded 150 years ago, just after the Civil War, to educate freed slaves. It graduated prominent black leaders of the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights. Its Jubilee Singers have been nominated for a Grammy.

But as it wraps up its sesquicentennial anniversary, Fisk is still grappling with a dilemma as old as the school itself: how to become financially sustainable.

Money problems and music are both part of Fisk's legendary origin story. Just five years after the school was founded, Congress decided that it would not renew funding for colleges that educated African Americans after the Civil War.

It was a desperate time, says history professor Reavis Mitchell.

"When the school reached the point of less than a dollar in the treasury, when there was no hope, a student chorus was put together in the fall of 1871," he says.

That student chorus became the Fisk Jubilee Singers. On Oct. 6, 1871, nine African American students in the group set out on their first northern tour.

"They would present themselves — some the children of slaves, a few enslaved themselves — and the world was truly astonished by these young people from this place called Fisk," Mitchell says.

Their tours became legendary. They performed at the White House for President Grant and in England for Queen Victoria. (She famously instructed her court painter to create a portrait of the singers, which still is displayed on campus.)

The tour worked: The singers raised enough money to save the school. Fisk bought the land it sat on and built one of the campus's oldest buildings, Jubilee Hall.

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