New marker honors original Fisk Jubilee Singers

Friday, November 10, 2017, Vol. 41, No. 45

NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Historical Commission has given a marker honoring the original Fisk Jubilee Singers.

News media outlets report the marker was given Wednesday and will be placed at Fisk University's Jubilee Hall in Nashville.

The marker honors the chorale group that in 1871 toured the U.S. to raise money for the school.

Musical Director Paul Kwami said the group's influence in introducing Negro spirituals to the world was something he felt even while growing up in Ghana, where people knew the songs.

Kwami says the original singers probably didn't expect that people would be thinking of them and singing their songs nearly 150 years later. He says it's "wonderful" that there is now a historic marker to honor them.