Page:The Story of the Jubilee Singers (7th).djvu/37

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  • perience—to break down. It was owing not a little

to their triumphant success as singers, and to the story of the distinguished attentions they received from the people of highest rank and culture both in America and Great Britain, that the prejudice against colour, the hateful heritage of slavery, which was so prevalent and powerful as to make those insults common in their first year's work, was so broken down that they were quite unfrequent in their travels three years afterwards. People who would not sit in the same church-pew as a negro, under the magic of their song were able to get new light on questions of social equality.

Returning to Cincinnati to fill engagements for the Sabbath, they found a dense audience gathered at Mr. Moore's church, in spite of rainy and unpleasant weather. It was hoped that the increasing enthusiasm manifested in connection with these praise services would insure a good audience at the paid concert which had been appointed at Mozart Hall for Tuesday evening; for hotel and travelling bills were already assuming serious proportions. But the receipts were barely sufficient to defray the local expenses of the concert.

However, it was not altogether lost labour. "It was," said one of the dailies, "probably the first concert ever given by a coloured troupe in this temple, which has resounded with the notes of the best vocalists of the land. The sweetness of the voices, the accuracy of the execution, and the precision of the time, carried the mind back to the early concerts of the Hutchinsons, the Gibsons, and