Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry by Sandra Jean Graham

Acknowledging the cultural shifts piloted by Fisk’s venture, Graham shows the distinct ways that their presentation, performance, and peer-recognition laid the groundwork for entertainment protocol in the years that follow.ģA recognizable name, varied repertoire, and connections to noteworthy educational and religious institutions helped the singers develop a public image that distinguished them from other troupes. Graham pays meticulous attention to each of the parts that contributed to the singers’ success.

It is when they launched their tour that Graham’s thesis takes shape. Once granted permission by university authorities, the singers struck out. Financially strained from its postbellum start, the School benefitted when George White, school treasurer and musical instructor, proposed in 1871 a plan to tour the Singers to raise money for Fisk. In 1866, the Fisk School in Nashville opened. Part I focuses on the development of the jubilee industry of which the Fisk Jubilee Singers were progenitors. Graham’s work reveals entertainment as one of the grounds on which these evolving battles were fought, since “the patrons of these Black entertainments were buying not only diversion but also conceptions of racial identity in heaping doses” (p. xvi).ĢThis book, divided into two parts, develops a fully-formed picture of the jubilee industry’s impact and influence on American life, culture, and ideology. 1Sandra Graham’s Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry is set in a barely emancipated world from the 1860s through the 1890s where newly freed Black people were discovering their own selfhood while white people were reworking the terms of their domination.

Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry by Sandra Jean Graham