Stand the Storm

Black education in the South was the great social program of the post–Civil War era. Desperately strapped for operating capital, the first freedmen’s schools resorted to a bold fundraising experiment. Student troupes were sent to the North singing Negro spirituals, the sacred songs of slavery, in order to generate goodwill and entice financial support. The Fisk University Jubilee Singers set this strategy in motion in 1871; in the wake of their success, it was adopted by HBCUs throughout the Sou