December 19, 2023 - Good Morning! It's Tuesday, December 19.
Today we share a story behind the beloved Christmas spiritual "Go, Tell it On the Mountain!"
In 1866, right after the end of the Civil War, a college was founded in Nashville called Fisk University. It was designed to provide education to all those who had recently become freedmen and freedwomen. Fisk is among a number of these kinds of schools that still exist today - Spelman University in Atlanta, Howard in Washington D.C., Xavier in New Orleans - just to name a few.
Fisk University struggled financially, as many new schools do, and so in 1871 its president formed a choir - The Jubilee Singers - a group that was designed not only to enrich the arts, but also to raise funds for the school. That year the singers toured America and Europe - singing for Queen Victoria, Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant - and raised $50,000. That's equal to a million dollars today!
In the early days of the university, another musical tradition was begun as well - a very special holiday tradition. On December 25, before sunrise, groups of students would walk from place to place on campus, singing the spiritual "Go, Tell it On the Mountain". Imagine being awakened on Christmas morning by that sound! A sound that echoed the voices of their ancestors who had no church buildings in which to sing, but would congregate in the out-of-doors to sing their praise to God. To sing songs like this...
Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born!
Down in a lowly manger the humble Christ was born
And God sent us salvation that blessed Christmas morn
Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born!
Meet you back here tomorrow,
Bro. David
dmathis@fbccenter.org
