Mary Eliza Walker Crump (1857 – August 6, 1928) was an African American contralto singer and manager, and one of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers.
Mary Eliza Walker Crump | |
|---|---|
 Mary Eliza Walker Crump, from a 1920 publication. | |
| Born | Mary Eliza Walker 1857 Tennessee |
| Died | August 6, 1928 (aged 70–71) Chicago, Illinois |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | singer and manager |
| Years active | 1871-1920s |
| Known for | original member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers |
| Notable work | leader of the Walker Jubilee Singers |
Early life
editMary Eliza Walker was born in slavery near Nashville, Tennessee.[1] "My mother belonged to Wesley Greenfield and my father to John W. Walker of Nashville," she wrote in an 1873 publication.[2] Her father owned an icehouse after the American Civil War.[3]
Career
edit
Mary Elizabeth Walker was just thirteen years old[4] when she became one of the original eleven Fisk Jubilee Singers. White missionary and music professor George L. White organized the group at the Fisk School in Nashville, Tennessee in 1871.[5] Other original members of the group were Maggie Porter and Ella Sheppard. They toured together, in various permutations, from 1871 to 1878, including concerts in England and Germany, singing African-American spirituals. They also sang songs by white composer Stephen Foster. Their performances raised money for their school, and eventually built Jubilee Hall on the Nashville campus.[6][7] Their audiences included Queen Victoria, Ulysses S. Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, Mark Twain and Dwight L. Moody.[8]
After the original group disbanded in 1878, Eliza Walker Crump lived in Chicago, and managed the Walker Jubilee Singers, also billed as Walker's Famous Jubilee Singers, touring and performing in a similar vein.[8][9] They were also a popular act on the chautauqua circuit.[10][11] In 1921, Crump attended the Fisk Jubilee Singers' fiftieth anniversary observance, as one of the four original members still living.[12][13]
Personal life
editWalker married fellow singer Thomas H. Crump; he died in 1922. Mary Eliza Walker Crump died in 1928, in Chicago, aged 70–71 years.[14] Ambrose Caliver, a Dean at Fisk University, sent a letter to be read at her funeral, saying "Fisk University rejoices in the complete fruition of a life so full of beauty and service. The gradual closing of the ranks of the first Jubilee Singers grieves us beyond measure, but we shall always cherish the memory of those who helped to make Fisk possible."[15]
In 1978, fifty years after she died, Eliza Walker and the other original members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers were granted posthumous honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Fisk University.[16]
References
edit- ^ Clara Merritt DeBoer, His Truth is Marching On: African Americans Who Taught the Freedmen for the American Missionary Association, 1861-1877 (Routledge 2016). ISBN 9781315408323
- ^ Gustavus D. Pike, The Jubilee singers, and their campaign for twenty thousand dollars (Lee & Shepard 1873): 54.
- ^ Fisk Jubilee Singers, original member, Eliza Walker, Special Collections of Fisk University Franklin Library.
- ^ "Tennesseeans Honor Original Jubilee Singer" Chicago Defender (December 18, 1915): 5. via ProQuest
- ^ Sandra Jean Graham, "How African-American Spirituals Moved from Cotton Fields to Concert Halls" Zócalo (October 29, 2018).
- ^ Sandra Graham, "On the Road to Freedom: The Contracts of the Fisk Jubilee Singers" American Music 24(1)(Spring 2006): 1-29.
- ^ "Singers Rescued School with Voices" The Daily Oklahoman (December 15, 1995): 171. via Newspapers.com
- ^ a b "The Beginning of Jubilee Singing" The Lyceum Magazine (April 1920): 18-19.
- ^ "The Fisk Jubilee Singers" Broad Ax (May 1, 1920): 2. via Newspapers.com
- ^ Paige Lush, Music in the Chautauqua Movement: From 1874 to the 1930s (McFarland 2013): 149. ISBN 9781476606194
- ^ Charlotte Canning, The Most American Thing in America: Circuit Chautauqua as Performance (University of Iowa Press 2005): 84-85. ISBN 9781587295928
- ^ "Fisk to Celebrate Fiftieth Jubilee Anniversary Today" Fisk University News (November 1921): 14.
- ^ "Music and Art" The Crisis (December 1921): 80.
- ^ "Singer Dies" Chicago Defender (August 11, 1928): 10. via ProQuest
- ^ "First Fisk Singer Dies in Hospital" Chicago Defender (August 11, 1928): 10. via ProQuest
- ^ Saundra Ivey, "Fisk Grads Told Blacks Must Still Battle High Unemployment" The Tennessean (May 16, 1978): 5. via Newspapers.com
External links
edit- A promotional brochure for Walker's Jubilee Singers, from the 1910s, in the Redpath Chautauqua Collection, University of Iowa Libraries.
- Fletcher F. Moon, "So 'Fisk' ticated Ladies and Gentlemen: Highlights From 150 Years of Fisk University’s Musical Tradition, Impact, and Influence" Library Faculty and Staff Presentations and Publications (Tennessee State University 2016).