AMERICAN SLAVE SINGERS COME TO SWANSEA.

  The Fisk Jubilee Singers were students from Fisk University, Nashville, USA who set out on tour to raise money for their University inaugurated for the education of freed slaves and was established in 1866 after the American Civil War. 

  The Singers were invited to Britain in 1874 by an aide to Queen Victoria, and performed at the Cradock Street Music Hall in Swansea to 1500 people. Described erroneously by Swansea's Cambrian daily paper as "the exponents of true Nigger Minstrelsy", they sang a programme of Strange Weird Slave Songs with concert hall authority and refinement, together with a poise and elegance of dress, in marked contrast to previous "blackface minstrelsy" troupes who performed in burnt cork''.

  Thy donated some of their earnings from the Albert Hall concerts to the Swansea YMCA.

  They were such a success that they returned to play the Albrty Hall a further 4 times in the next 15 years and also sold out two eveings at the newly opened Grand Theatre.