Ella Sheppard (February 4, 1851 – June 9, 1914) was an American soprano, pianist, composer, and arranger of
Negro Spirituals
Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the ex ...
. She was the matriarch of the original
Fisk Jubilee Singers
The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American ''a cappella'' ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditiona ...
of
Nashville, Tennessee.
She also played the organ and the guitar. Sheppard was a friend and confidante of African-American activists and orators
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American ...
and
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
.
Early life and education
A direct descendant of
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
, Samuella "Ella" Sheppard was born on
The Hermitage, Jackson's plantation.
Sheppard's father Simon hired himself out as a Nashville liveryman and hack driver. This enabled him to earn $1,800 allowing him to pay for his own freedom. Sarah Hannah Sheppard, Ella's mother, was promised that her freedom could be purchased by Simon, but the slave mistress reneged on the agreement. "Sarah shall never belong to Simon," she declared. "She is mine and she shall die mine. Let Simon get another wife."
Fed-up with slave life, Sarah threatened that she'd rather "...take Ella and jump into the river than see her a slave." Legend says that Ella's mother took her to the riverbank to carry out the threat, but an elderly slave woman prevented her, saying, "Don’t do it, Honey! Don’t you see God’s chariot a-comin’ down from Heaven? Let the chariot of the Lord swing low. This child is gonna stand before kings and queens! The Lord would have need of that child."
Sarah took the woman's advice, walked back up the hill to slavery with Ella in her arms. Fearing the loss of the child, the slave mistress allowed Simon Sheppard to purchase his own daughter for $350.
When young Ella's mother was sold to a plantation in
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Missis ...
, she stayed with her father in Nashville. He later married another enslaved woman for whom he paid $1,300 to free her.
Following an 1856 Nashville race riot, whites tightened controls on free Negroes in the area. As a result, Simon was unable to work and soon found himself in debt. Fearful of the potential seizure of his family (as assets to be sold into slavery), he fled to Cincinnati, Ohio.
Ella showed exceptional musical talent. 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.,
and also studied with a white American teacher who gave lessons on the condition she keep it a secret. 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.
After about five months she was only able to save a little more than $6, because the poor black pupils were not always able to pay for their lessons. She took that $6 and enrolled at the
Fisk Free Colored School in Nashville, Tennessee in 1868, where her $6 lasted three weeks.
Career
Sheppard taught music in Nashville, which paid for her studies over the next two years. She was asked to teach music at the Fisk School. She was the sole black member of the staff at Fisk prior to 1875. When the treasurer of Fisk, George L. White, overheard some of the students singing the original old "plantation songs," which were not meant to be heard in public, he was so moved by these haunting melodies that he decided to have them arranged for concert performance, in European-style four-part harmony. Sheppard did most of the arranging of these works. The first tours were successful, and the
Fisk Jubilee Singers
The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American ''a cappella'' ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditiona ...
were formed in 1871 to go on a national tour. Sheppard worked as the primary vocal coach and director for the group, collecting over one hundred songs for their repertoire, as well as accompanying the choir on piano, overseeing rehearsals, and conducting during performances.
They sang for
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has pr ...
, President
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union A ...
, congressmen, diplomats, and royalty. "These singers," according to one newspaper, "are doing a great work for humanity."
Sheppard was with the Jubilee Singers when the group toured Europe, including performances for the British, Dutch and German monarchs.
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
stated when she heard the group while Ella Sheppard served as their matriarch, "
he Fisk Jubilee Singerssing so beautifully they must be from the Music City of the United States."
The original Jubilee Singers disbanded in 1878 because of their grueling touring schedule. Ella Sheppard was quoted as saying, "Our strength was failing under the ill treatment at hotels, on railroads, poorly attended concerts, and ridicule." As violence against African-Americans grew in the South, it was deemed unsafe for women to travel with the group. A male quartet called the
Fisk Jubilee Quartet was formed to carry on the tradition of the Spirituals in concert form.
Marriage
Sheppard was wed to George Washington Moore in 1882. He was a prominent minister known for his contributions to the
American Missionary Association
United States Colored Troops, The American Missionary Association (AMA) was a Protestant-based Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist group founded on in Albany, New York. The main purpose of the organization was Abolitionism, abolition ...
.
She eventually found her mother in Mississippi and brought her back to Nashville to live in her home.
George Sheppard Moore, a doctor, was one of their sons and Clinton the other.
Legacy
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. Since its inception, the school has provided free musical instruction to hundreds of children ages 2–14 on Chicago's West Side.
References
External links
"Ella Sheppard: Jubilee Singer, Composer, Former Slave," a lecture presented by Nina Kennedy*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sheppard, Ella
1851 births
1914 deaths
American sopranos
Gospel music pianists
African-American pianists
African-American women composers
African-American composers
American women composers
American women music educators
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
Fisk University alumni
Fisk University faculty
American women academics
19th-century American women musicians
20th-century African-American women singers
19th-century women pianists
20th-century women pianists