What You Should Know About Fisk University

Painting of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers by the court painter of Queen Victoria. This life-size canvas is displayed in the Appleton Room of Fisk’s Jubilee Hall.

Clinton B. Fisk

Maggie L. Porter Cole

Spirit of Detroit

The article, here, provides helpful information about Fisk University.

Jubilee Hall, depicted above, is a living monument to the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, who raised enormous funds from their tours throughout the United States and Europe, beginning in 1871, as they introduced the Negro Spiritual to the world as art song.

Fisk University, founded in 1866, has a rich legacy of excellence and leadership in higher education. To get acquainted with its history, click here. Its graduates have been outstanding in their careers and their service to humanity over the years  The University’s mission and values are set forth here.

General Clinton Bowen Fisk (December 8, 1828 – July 9, 1890), a founder and benefactor for whom the Fisk Memorial Chapel and the University are named, was a native of the state of New York. However, he spent much of his childhood in Coldwater, Michigan, and is buried there in the Oak Grove Cemetery, about 125 miles southwest of Detroit. Read an article by Fisk University’s late history professor Dr. Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr., about General Fisk.

Maggie L. Porter (1853–1942), the longest living of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, came to live in Detroit, where she met her husband Daniel Cole. They formed their own troupe, Original Jubilee Singers, and performed widely in the United States and abroad. She was 89 years old when she passed away in Detroit.

The Detroit Fisk Club

Detroit is the largest city in Michigan and is located across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Over the years, there have been many Detroit area and Michigan-wide Fisk graduates — Fiskites. The 60-year-old Spirit of Detroit Statue is an iconic symbol of our great city.

The Detroit Fisk Club is the only Fisk Alumni Club in Michigan and, therefore, is representative of the entire state of over 300 known Fisk alumni. The Detroit Fisk Club is a chapter of the General Alumni Association of Fisk University (GAAFU) and its Midwest Region. The Club assists Fisk University with the recruitment and support of students from Michigan and in fundraising for the University. It also engages with similar alumni organizations in the Detroit area from other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in mutually beneficial endeavors.

From September 14–16, 2018, the Detroit Fisk Club was host alumni chapter for the GAAFU Midwest Biennial Regional Conference in downtown Detroit and, on September 15, sponsored a fundraising event, celebrating alumna Deborah Fitzgerald Copeland ’70, at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art in Detroit.

Former presidents of the Detroit Fisk Club have included JoAnn Washington ’61; Robert Orr, DO, ’59; Leonard Davis, DDS, ’58; Maurice Shane ’67; John Carruthers ’73; William Burton, JD, ’85; Yolanda Hudson, MA, ’87, and Ayo K. Thomas ‘11.