JUBILEE SINGERS.
These singers of world-wide fame will once more enter the “service of song” for Fisk University. They have devoted their wonderful voices to its benefit for six years, during which they left their marvelous impress on vast and select audiences in America, Great Britain, and the Continent, including the highest and humblest in rank, and have reared as their monument the substantial and beautiful Jubilee Hall, at Fisk University. The past two years they have taken for needed rest, and in giving concerts for their own benefit; and in dedicating themselves to the up-building of the University, it is now for endowment, as it was then for building.
During all these years, their voices have been more and more highly cultivated, without losing their freshness and originality, or their power to move most deeply the hearts of vast audiences, as was so signally manifested in the enthusiastic gatherings they met recently at Chautauqua.
The name and fame of these Singers have been repeatedly appropriated by unworthy imitators. This true Jubilee Troupe, when again heard, will need no credentials except their own voices to certify to the public that they are the original Jubilee Singers.
Gen. Garfield heard the Jubilee Singers when he was at Chautauqua, and closed his eloquent speech with this beautiful tribute:
“I heard yesterday and last night the songs of those who were lately redeemed from slavery, and I felt that there, too, was one of the great triumphs of the republic. I believe in the efficiency of forces that come down from the ages behind us; and I wondered if the tropical sun had not distilled its sweetness, and if the sorrows of centuries of slavery had not distilled its sadness, into voices which were touchingly sweet—voices to sing the songs of liberty as they sing them wherever they go.”
In his speech responding to a serenade by the “Boys in Blue” in this city, he expressed this noble sentiment in reference to our colored fellow-citizens—a sentiment which must become a fact established beyond the possibility of successful assault before there can be either peace or safety for the nation:
“We will stand by them until the sun of liberty, fixed in the firmament of our Constitution, shall shine with equal ray upon every man, black or white, throughout the Union. Fellow-citizens, fellow-soldiers, in this there is all the beneficence of eternal justice, and by this we will stand forever.”
Atlanta’s Colored People.—Atlanta, and the world outside that Chicago of the South, will doubtless be surprised to learn that her colored people give in $250,000 of taxable property. There are over six hundred who pay tax on values ranging between $100 and $1,000; some forty ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 and over. In business pursuits, there are 40 boot and shoe makers, 40 retail grocers, 75 draymen, 25 hackmen, 20 blacksmiths, 12 barbers, 2 tailors, several boarding-house keepers, 2 caterers, 5 confectioners, 3 dealers in fruits, 1 dentist, 1 undertaker, 1 veterinary surgeon, 1 mattrass maker, and 1 billiard-table keeper. Of bootblacks, newspaper venders, porters, peddlers, drummers, messengers, hostlers, waiters, and those engaged in mechanical pursuits, we have no special data, for they are numerous.
There are eighteen churches in the city, with an average membership of 350, the three largest having each over 1,500. Over 5,000 children and adults are in the Sabbath schools, and 1,278 children, about one-half in the public schools of the city. There are three lodges of Good Templars among them, having a total membership of about 200. Two lodges of Good Samaritans and Daughters of Samaria have a membership of some 500. The Brothers Aid Society number some 250, and the Brothers of Love and Charity 75. The Gospel Aid Society, Daughters of Bethel, and Daughters of Jerusalem—benevolent institutions—number a total of about 600. The Masonic lodge has some 50 members. There are lodges of Odd Fellows whose combined membership exceeds 600. These institutions have encouraged them to form habits of sobriety and economy, and imbued them with feelings of charity and benevolence. There are five military companies, and they show great proficiency in the manual of arms.