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)
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)
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)
Milton Price Webster is best known as one of the founders and long-time Vice President of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids (BSCP) Union. He helped organize the BSCP’s local in Chicago, one of the largest in the nation with over 15,000 … Read MoreMilton P. Webster (1887-1965)
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)
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, 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, 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)
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)
Constance Baker Motley was born on September 14, 1921, in New Haven, Connecticut. She was the ninth child in a family of twelve children. Her parents were emigrants from the island of Nevis in the West Indies. Motley grew up attending New Haven’s integrated public … Read MoreConstance Baker Motley (1921-2005)
