Fisk University was founded in 1866. It’s a private historically black liberal arts college that has a 40-acre campus in Nashville, Tennessee. I found these beautiful pictures of the school to share from the turn of the century and a little earlier.

They’re the kind of photographs where you want some kind of musical accompaniment.  I thought you’d like some Sergei Rachmaninoff.  Does that sound about right?  The only trouble with him is that most of his pieces are too long to accompany a post. Rhapsody on Themes of Paganini is the exception. You might be familiar with it from the movie Somewhere in Time.

 

I don’t know Rachmaninoff’s history, except he was a brilliant Russian-born composer who was exiled from his country. However, I learned a fascinating fact about him today. Last words are eternally interesting to me and Rachmaninoff didn’t let me down.  The last thing he said was, “Goodbye, my beautiful hands.”

The composer stood at 6’6 and his hand span was 12″. I don’t know how they go about measuring that but I stretched my fingers as much as possible and, at the widest point, they are 6″.

As you listen to his beautiful music, do take a look at these pictures from Fisk University. The university is still operating today. I wonder if they’ve been able to preserve the beauty and dignity it exudes in these pictures?

I love this next picture. It shows the morning prayer services in the chapel.  Can you imagine a huge group of college students getting dressed up and beginning their day with prayers? I can’t imagine it—and I didn’t do that myself when I was in college. I don’t do it now.  Nevertheless, I think it would be a great thing if people did. Imagine the serenity of such an existence!

From an architectural perspective, I love the columns and the minimalism. Just beautiful!

This is an older picture. Here you have the university’s Jubilee Singers
(from l. to r.) Minnie Tate, Greene Evans, Isaac Dickerson, Jennie Jackson, Maggie Porter, Ella Sheppard, Thomas Rutling, Benjamin Holmes, and Eliza Walker.

It’s far too long for me to post here but there’s an incredible video of Fisk’s jubilee singers from 2018 available on YouTube that I highly recommend!

I’m impressed by the architecture of their library and by how much more effective this looks than studying with computers. Of course people can study with computers but it lacks the gravitas this scene has. (What a curmudgeon I’ve become!)

This next shot is of students and teachers in “training school” at Fisk. I’m curious about what that school was about. Was it equivalent to an Education department at a modern university?

And finally, we have the Extempo Club!

I had to look this one up, and here’s what I found: “Extempo is a lyrically improvised form of calypso and is most notably practiced in Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago. It consists of performers improvising in song or in rhythmic speech on a given theme before an audience, which take turns to perform. It is inherently competitive, and success is judged by the wit and the ingenuity of the performance.”

I went on YouTube to find some Extempo performances. They’re real battles of wit! Are you curious about it? Like Rachmaninoff, Extempo performances tend to be long but I found a shorter sample to share, featuring Lady Africa and Gypsy.  It’s good stuff!