Remembering Ossie Davis at the Apollo with Fisk’s Jubilee Singers

A large, beautiful, personally autographed photograph of Ruby and Ossie hung over my mother’s piano at home. It was a gift to her when her album Irene Day – He’s Everywhere was released. I had gifted them with a personal copy of the album. They both loved her soprano voice.

As president of my alma mater’s New York Alumni Association, Ossie had graciously agreed to serve as emcee for an event I chaired – a free concert presenting the historic Fisk Jubilee Singers at the Apollo Theater for the high school students of New York City, sponsored by Pfizer Corporation. Ossie agreed with one condition; that I write his prepared remarks.

I gladly agreed to the assignment. As a graduate of Howard University, Ossie Davis understood the importance of black students understanding the origins of black American music. And the Jubilee Singers embody the excellence and originality of African American music traditions in spirituals, slave songs, and sacred African American song – perhaps more than any group in history.

The busloads of energetic students arrived, noisy and playful, and packed the theater quickly. Ossie and I had spoken the evening before and I knew he had an early emergency dental appointment and might be running a few minutes late. I was getting nervous after the Apollo’s director and the governor’s surrogate had welcomed the Singers to New York and thanked the students and teachers for being there. Ossie had not arrived and that meant the task of emcee would fall on “moi.”

Luckily, I had written his prepared remarks as a script – a familiar form for the highly accomplished actor and great playwright. As the young Hip Hop-crazed audience grew more boisterous and rambunctious, I began to wonder just how they’d receive the show and whether Ossie would get there in time to bail me out of being the default Master of Ceremonies for 1300 unimpressed middle and high school kids.

Then, from stage right, the tall distinguished black man’s profile appeared off stage. I greeted him and asked him how he felt. He said, “About like you’d feel after a root canal.” I grimaced. He laughed heartily and that put me at ease. We quickly went over key points in the script. He then said, “Right, Dennis, show time!” After Ossie was introduced, the audience calmed down a bit.

Ossie brilliantly brought the words and context into focus for a generation of young people who had no clue what struggles black artists endured during and after Reconstruction to gain critical acclaim as the Fisk Jubilee Singers had achieved. After their first song – always acappela and unaccompanied – the theater was in rapt silence, and except for thunderous applause, remained appreciative through the end.

Ossie handed me the script as I thanked him and his chauffeur for traversing Manhattan traffic to accommodate this event. We both smiled broadly, knowing that the students would always remember hearing their ancient voices and hallowed history in song as performed by the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

I plan to donate the script marked on by the great thespian himself to the John Hope Franklin Library on Fisk University’s campus in Nashville. That large framed portrait of Ossie and Ruby that for years graced my mother’s living room was donated to the East Chicago public libraries special exhibits section.