Andrew Ward, Author at

Independent Historian

Andrew Ward is the author of several award winning historical works including River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War; Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres in the Indian Mutiny of 1857;and Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. A former contributing editor and essayist at the Atlantic Monthly, commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered, and columnist for the Washington Post, Ward has also written numerous articles for American Heritage and National Geographic, and documentary screenplays for WGBH and the Hallmark Channel.

Ella Sheppard (1851-1915)

Ella Sheppard, soprano, pianist and reformer, was the matriarch of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a social reformer, confidante of Frederick Douglass, and one of the most distinguished African American women of her generation. Sheppard was born a slave in 1851 on Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage plantation. … Read MoreElla Sheppard (1851-1915)

Maggie Porter (1853-1942)

Maggie Porter was born in Lebanon, Tennessee around 1853. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Henry Frazier, a wealthy planter from Lebanon, took refuge in Nashville with his family and house slaves, among them a Mrs. Porter, his chief domestic servant, her … Read MoreMaggie Porter (1853-1942)

Isaac Dickerson (1852-1900)

Fisk Jubilee Singer and preacher Isaac Dickerson was born enslaved in Wytheville, Virginia in 1852 and orphaned by the age of five. His earliest memory was his father’s sale to a slave trader in Richmond, Virginia. Young Isaac was treated kindly by his master, a … Read MoreIsaac Dickerson (1852-1900)

America W. Robinson (ca. 1855-ca. 1920)

Fisk Jubilee Singer and educator America W. Robinson was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1855. Though America’s father was his master’s half brother, he enjoyed no special privileges; when his white relations ran into financial difficulty, they sold him to a Virginian named Elliott. An … Read MoreAmerica W. Robinson (ca. 1855-ca. 1920)

Greene Evans (1848-1914)

Greene Evans, Fisk Jubilee Singer, Memphis City Councilman and Tennessee State Assemblyman, was born somewhere in Tennessee and emancipated after the Civil War. Evans attended night school at a Memphis freedmen’s school until it was burned down in the Memphis Riot in 1866. After working … Read MoreGreene Evans (1848-1914)

Thomas Rutling (1854-1915)

Born a slave, Thomas Rutling was one of only four Fisk Jubilee Singers who remained with the company through all three of their pioneering tours between 1872 and 1877. After completing a tour of Europe he refused to return to racist America, he lived the … Read MoreThomas Rutling (1854-1915)

Jennie Jackson (1852-1910)

Jennie Jackson, Fisk Jubilee Singer, folklorist & impresario, was the granddaughter of President Andrew Jackson’s almost lifelong body servant. Jackson’s mother had been born a slave, and her father, George, also enslaved, had died before Jennie was born. But because her mother was the beneficiary … Read MoreJennie Jackson (1852-1910)

Frederick J. Loudin (1840-1904)

Frederick J. Loudin, teacher, impresario, manufacturer and Fisk Jubilee Singer, had a bass voice the likes of which no one would hear again until the emergence of Roland Hayes and Paul Robeson. At thirty-four, he would become the oldest member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ … Read MoreFrederick J. Loudin (1840-1904)

Benjamin M. Holmes (1846-1875)

Teacher, news correspondent, and Fisk Jubilee Singer, Benjamin M. Holmes was born a slave around 1846 in Charleston, South Carolina and bound as an apprentice to a black tailor. Holmes was eventually bought by a man named Kaylor, who employed him as a hotel clerk … Read MoreBenjamin M. Holmes (1846-1875)

Ophelia Settle Egypt (1903-1984)

In the late 1920s, Ophelia Settle Egypt conducted some of the first and finest interviews with former slaves, setting the stage for the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) massive project ten years later. Born Ophelia Settle in 1903, she was a graduate of the University of … Read MoreOphelia Settle Egypt (1903-1984)