In April 1900 Frederick Jeremiah Loudin wrote from London to John Edward Bruce, a journalist born into slavery in 1856, in an attempt to influence African-American opinion on the war in South Africa. He was reminded ‘what Britain has been to us’ and ‘the experience of Coleridge Taylor’ showed there was ‘a sentiment prevalent here to render such a thing possible says more than all I could write in months’. The Royal Choral Society – ‘one of the most exclusive and aristocratic musical organizations in the world if not the most exclusive’ – had invited ‘a Negro’ to write for it and to conduct their performance ‘in the finest and largest hall in Britain with orchestra of over 150 pieces and choirs of over a thousand’. Surely Bruce agreed that the President and members of Congress, the Supreme Court and all state legislatures would resign if that had happened in ‘Free America?’

Loudin, born in Ohio in the early 1840s had led a choir presenting songs to refined audiences for two decades. The Jubilee Singers had first gathered funds for Fisk University in Nashville, touring Britain and when an independent group led by Loudin circled the globe performing across Australia, introducing Spirituals to thousands. A book telling their story, with a collection of Spirituals was reprinted several times.