TeachRock

On Sunday, Beyoncé made history by becoming the first Black woman in the 21st century to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. She is only the fourth Black woman to win the award since the inception of the Grammys in 1959. Can you name the other three Black women who have won the Album of the Year award? Answer below!

Of course, Beyoncé is part of a rich history of Black American musicians who have achieved national recognition for their musical innovations. In celebration of Black History Month, we are going all the way back to the 19th century to showcase three Black Superstar Musicians everyone should know. Each figure is profiled in our A People’s Playlist curriculum – a complete U.S. History course TeachRock is currently producing. You can preview the first unit of the course here.

Born in Sacramento, California, in the 1850s, Anna and Emma Hyers grew up immersed in the city’s African American activist community. They began vocal lessons early, leading to a debut performance at Sacramento’s Metropolitan theatre. From there, they toured with their father/manager throughout the United States, becoming both the first African American and the first women to be part of the illustrious Redpath Lyceum touring circuit. Through their touring, the Hyers Sisters became two of the most famous opera singers of their time.

Their fame soon reached across the Atlantic, and the Hyers sisters were given the opportunity to perform in some of the most famous Opera Halls in Europe. But the Hyers Sisters turned down their invitation to Europe. No doubt inspired by the activist roots of their hometown, and confronted with the end of Reconstruction and the birth of the Jim Crow era, the Hyers Sisters felt it was more important to become advocates for Black music and humanity at home. Working with writer Joseph Bradford, they premiered their first original show: Out of Bondage, which told the tale of a family who moved from slavery in the South to Emancipation and freedom to the North. The play had at the time an unconventional approach: mixing spoken dialogue with songs, many of which pre-existing and popular at the time. Through this approach, the Hyers sisters are widely recognized for inventing the modern American musical.

Have your students discover more about the Hyers sisters in this lesson.

Fisk University opened in Nashville, Tennessee in 1866 to provide education for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. In 1871, the school treasurer started the Fisk Jubilee Singers, an a cappella group, to raise money for the school that was struggling to stay open. The Fisk Jubilee Singers would travel widely around the United States and the world where they introduced “slave songs” and were “instrumental in perserving this unique American musical tradition known today as Negro spirituals”. The group performed  for President Ulysses S. Grant, Queen Victoria and Mark Twain had this to say about the group, “The Jubilee Singers are to appear in London, & I am requested to say in their behalf what I know about them—& I most cheerfully do it. I heard them sing once, & I would walk seven miles to hear them sing again.” The original Jubilee Singers raised approximately $150,000 that contributed to the building of Jubilee Hall on the Fisk University campus.  The Jubilee Singers are still a part of Fisk University today and celebrated their 150th anniversary on October 6, 2021.

Explore TeachRock’s new lesson featuring the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Late Reconstruction featuring the Jubilee Singers.  Students will follow the Jubilee Singers tour of the United States to examine the final years of Reconstruction.

Egbert “Bert” Austin Williams is regarded as one of the most extraordinary entertainers in American history. Williams was born in the Bahamas on November 12, 1874 and relocated to the U.S. in the 1880s. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Williams forged a successful career within the American theatre – an industry, like many in the U.S., where few opportunities were available to people of color. Williams’ celebrity and success was built portraying Jim Crow-type characters, and in blackface. However, Williams approached the portrayals as an opportunity to reclaim and reshape how audiences experienced the Jim Crow character. His performances created a sense of humanity within and exposed the artifice of the Jim Crow character, all while making subtle social commentary on race relations in America. In 1903, Williams would have a lead role in the first show written, produced, and performed by Black Americans on Broadway, In Dahomey: A Negro Musical Comedy. At the dawn of the music recording industry, he was the first Black American to sign and record for a major record company, Columbia Records, producing nearly 80 recordings between 1901-1922.

Explore TeachRock’s new lesson featuring Bert Williams, “Plessy v. Ferguson featuring Bert Williams”, including an engaging activity where students pair quotes by Bert Williams with texts describing his life and career.

 

Answers: Lauren Hill, Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole.