Page:The Story of the Jubilee Singers (7th).djvu/66

 part of the house. An estimable lady, who was a teacher in a coloured mission school, had bought reserved seats for her class; but they, too, were compelled to take their place in the coloured quarter under the gallery, regardless of the contract involved in the tickets which they held. The Singers were so indignant that they would gladly have given up the concert. The fact that so many old friends of the slave had come from long distances to hear them alone persuaded them to go on.

During two seasons of concerts they had never before been subjected to this indignity, even in a public hall; that it should be offered in a church of Christ was a grievance not to be passed over in silence, and Mr. White took occasion, in an interval of the concert, to characterise it in the terms it deserved. It was plainer preaching on that subject, probably, than had ever been heard in that church before. And most of those who greeted it with their angry hisses have doubtless already lived long enough to be heartily ashamed of them.

A tract of twenty-five acres, on a commanding site overlooking the city of Nashville, had been purchased for the permanent location of Fisk University. During the war the eminence had been crowned by Fort Gillem, one of the encircling line of fortifications that had defended the city in the memorable contests that had raged around it. The students had worked with the labourers to level the earthworks, and the foundations had been laid for a noble building for university purposes, to be called Jubilee Hall.