Ella Sheppard
Sarah Hannah Sheppard, Ella's mother, was promised that her freedom could be purchased by Simon, but the slave mistress reneged on the agreement.
To support this talent, her father purchased a piano for his daughter, and paid a German woman to give her private music lessons.
Young Ella attended a colored school in Cincinnati,[10] and also studied with a white American teacher who gave lessons on the condition she keep it a secret.
[11] After her father's death from cholera in 1866, Ella supported herself, her stepmother and half-sister by playing for local functions, working as a maid, and teaching music in Gallatin, Tennessee.
She took that $6, packed her belongings in a "pie box"-sized trunk, and enrolled at the Fisk Free Colored School in Nashville, Tennessee in 1868, where her $6 lasted three weeks.
[5][10] She had planned to leave after her money ran out, but was able to convince other students to take music lessons from her, and found additional work in the campus dining room and as a dishwasher in order to stay in school.
[12] Fisk was struggling financially at this time, needing better buildings, dining resources, and supplies for their students–worse, the American Missionary Association was considering closing the school.
[11] When Fisk's treasurer, George L. White, overheard some of the students singing the original old "plantation songs," which were not meant to be heard in public,[13] he was so moved by these haunting melodies that he decided to have them arranged for concert performance, in European-style four-part harmony.
"[19] Sheppard wrote that the British were "so stupid or ignorant" about black people and Americans, but appreciated the praise of a reverend in Berlin and the enthusiasm of the Crown Prince in Pottsdam.
[20] Towards the end of the second European tour, George White resigned and returned home, leaving Sheppard full control over the group.
The Jubilee Singers later disbanded in July 1878 because of their grueling touring schedule and dwindling profits due to economic recessions in Europe.
[11] Ella Sheppard was quoted as saying, "Our strength was failing under the ill treatment at hotels, on railroads, poorly attended concerts, and ridicule.
The Jubilee Singers had a newly political role when they advocated for the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and politicians like the soon-to-be President James Garfield.
[11] Sheppard left the independent group in 1882 when she got married, but she continued to organize jubilee choirs between work she did for the American Missionary Association.
[11] Modern scholars have identified her as unjustly overlooked for decades, both for her shaping of the initial Jubilee Singers, and because during the 1890s she was the director of the group in practice but not title.
[27]On November 17, 2009, the Ella Sheppard School of Music was founded by Chicago Native and former Fisk Jubilee Singer George Cooper — who studied piano with Matthew Kennedy, director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers from 1957 to 1986 — with the blessing of Ella Sheppard's great granddaughter Beth Howse.
