Jubilee Quartets Impact on HBCUs

Taking inspiration from Fisk University success, many other HBCUs such as Hampton University, Morehouse College, Tuskegee University, and many more started there own quartets. Providing shows for their students and others in there community, Jubilee Quartets became a popular addition to their school’s music department. These schools followed another part of the Fisk Jubilee Quartet, which was rearranging spirituals to fit the four-part harmony of the genre. Songs like “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”, “Steal Away to Jesus”, and “Wade In the Water”, were commonly rearranged by these schools so that each one had their own unique version. The increase in HBCUs using Jubilee Quartets, help to better promote themselves to the public and provide more money to their schools. The perception of the quartets from the surrounding community usually were quite positive, but it was heavily criticized by those in the white community. Seeing quartet style of music as a coming from Europe, some thought it as trying to copy white music and found to be strange. Seeing that most of the HBCU quartets used spirituals from their ancestors and were even sung by some former slaves, it as was very noticeable that the style of quartets that were done by the African American community would be fully different from their white counterparts. This style was completely unique to the community and would continue to help define the presence of black people in music in America.