Nashville was given the Nickname ‘Music City’ by England's Queen Victoria after receiving the Fisk University Jubilee Singers in her court in 1873. The group, made of mostly those formely enslaved, put Nashville on the musical map. —Fisk University opened in Nashville in 1866 as the first American university to offer a liberal arts education to “young men and women irrespective of color.” Five years later the school was in dire financial straits. George L. White, Fisk treasurer and music professor then, created a nine-member choral ensemble of students and took it on tour to earn money for the University. Every one of these students had been enslaved. The group left campus on October 6, 1871. Jubilee Day is celebrated annually on October 6 to commemorate this historic day. The first concerts were in small towns. Surprise, curiosity, and some hostility were the early audience response to these young black singers who did not perform in the traditional “minstrel fashion.” One early concert in Cincinnati brought in $50, which was promptly donated to victims of the notorious 1871 fire in Chicago. When they reached Columbus, the next city on tour, the students were physically and emotionally drained. Mr. White, in a gesture of hope and encouragement, named them “The Jubilee Singers,” a Biblical reference to the year of Jubilee in the Book of Leviticus, Chapter 25. Continued perseverance and beautiful voices began to change attitudes among the predominantly white audiences. Eventually skepticism was replaced by standing ovations and critical praise in reviews. Gradually they earned enough money to cover expenses and send back to Fisk. In 1872 they sang at the World Peace Festival in Boston and at the end of the year President Ulysses S. Grant invited them to perform at the White House. In 1873 the group grew to eleven members and toured Europe for the first time. Funds raised that year were used to construct the school’s first permanent building, Jubilee Hall. Today Jubilee Hall, designated a National Historic Landmark by the US Department of Interior in 1975, is one of the oldest structures on campus. The beautiful Victorian Gothic building houses a floor-to-ceiling portrait of the original Jubilee Singers, commissioned by Queen Victoria during the 1873 tour as a gift from England to Fisk. 🖋️if you love our content, please consider supporting our page on AfricanArchives.Support (follow the ko-fi page too for weekly posts roundup)

In 1926, thirteen black men put together their savings and founded Safe Bus Company, making it the largest black owned bus company at that time. It was formed in Winston-Salem to serve the black neighborhoods due to segregation and operated till 1972. Thirteen Black men put together their life-savings and purchasing shares of stock for $100,000; forming Safe Bus Co, Inc. on May 26, 1926, Safe Bus Co became the largest African-American owned bus company in the nation. The company grew large and fast and was at one point named the largest black-owned transportation company in the world. In 1955, Safe Bus grossed $825,000. At it’s prime, the company carried 15,000 fares a day, grossed $18,000 a week and had 75 employees. Fares started at five cents in the early operating days and grew as the company expanded. The number of buses expanded as well, from 35 to 42. Safe Bus operated in 20 percent of the city. Black bus drivers made, around $1.60 to $2.50 an hour. “That was more than school teachers were making then.” By 1968, Safe Bus provided transportation to all city residents. The company took on more routes, but finding drivers proved difficult. Despite more routes, after integration, Safe Bus started to lose money. Old attitudes about segregation made it difficult to make a profit, and the company lost 60 percent of riders, according to the Winston-Salem Transit Authority. “When the whites started riding Safe Bus, they thought they had to go to the back,”. After integration Black people Started riding on white-owned buses so they could sit up front with white people. Stockholders voted to sell the company to the city in 1972. The Winston-Salem Transit Authority became responsible for all public. 🖋️if you love our content, please consider supporting our page on AfricanArchives.Support (follow the ko-fi page too for weekly posts roundup)