“Georgia Minor Gordon Taylor- Nashville’s Jubilee Soprano”
Born in the Black Athens of the South to a free “mulatto” mother and an enslaved father, Georgia Minor Gordon Taylor was born on April 22, 1855. The law of the land in Nashville back in 1855 permitted that children of free mothers were free. Therefore, Mercy Duke Gordon (1833-1890), Georgia’s mother was free, because of her mixed racial background. In the unique case of her father, George Gordon (1830-1870), he was considered a quasi-independent slave who was allowed to live in his free wife’s household, hire out his personal time to work for others, and pay a percentage of his earnings to his owner. Free Blacks comprised virtually twenty-two percent of Nashville’s inhabitants by 1860, and mulattoes (mixed race persons) made up more than half of the free Black residents.
Mercy had a child, Elwina, born in 1848 and fathered by a white man (a “Doctor Warner”) before she married George. Mercy and George had two children: Governor B. (1853-1870) and Georgia. Free blacks comprised nearly twenty-two percent of Nashville’s population by 1860, and mulattoes (persons of black and white parentage) made up more than half of the town’s free Negroes.
In 1868, Georgia Gordon became a student in the literary department where she began to take music lessons from George L. White, the future director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Georgia became an original member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The Fisk Jubilee singers were an a cappella ensemble that boasted a national and international reputation compromised of Fisk University students founded in 1871. They organized with hopes to tour the world in order to raise funds to support their financially struggling institution. They toured along the path of the Underground Railroad in the U.S. and broke racial barriers by performing all over Europe. The Fisk Jubilee singers were instrumental in preserving the unique African-American tradition of singing Negro Spirituals. She added her sweet flute soprano tone and expertise.
At the tender age of 18, Georgia was among the first group of Fisk vocalists to tour the U.S. and Europe from 1872-1873, even appearing before Queen Victoria in England. After returning to America, she married the Reverend Dr. Preston Taylor (1849-1931) on May 7, 1890. Born a slave and granted his freedom after being employed as a drummer boy in the Union Army during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Preston Taylor is now considered one of the most influential 20th century Black leaders in Nashville. Preston Taylor is credited with creating Greenwood Park, the first park for African-American communities in Nashville, and Greenwood Cemetery, the second oldest African-American cemetery in Nashville. Dr. Preston Taylor also founded Lea Avenue Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church and Taylor Funeral Company, assisted in organizing the first black bank, One Cent (Citizen’s) Savings and Trust Company Banks in Nashville, and was a prime mover in the foundation of Tennessee State Agricultural and Industrial State Normal College in 1909, which is now known as Tennessee State University.
The couple had one child, Preston Gordon Taylor (1890-1891). Saddened by the untimely death of her seven-month old newborn, Georgia became her husband’s continuous companion. Georgia dedicated her ability as a soprano soloist to perform throughout Nashville’s Black community. Following her death in 1913, Georgia Gordon Taylor was buried in Nashville’s Black Cemetery, Greenwood Cemetery, located on Elm Hill Pike.
In 1978, Walter Leonard, president of Fisk University, posthumously awarded Taylor a bachelor’s degree. A commemorative inscription on her tombstone signifies that she was an original Jubilee Singer, and her journey with the Jubilee Singers is well documented in the Special Collections section of the Fisk University Library. An infamous oil portrait hangs in the Appleton Room of Jubilee Hall on Fisk’s campus where Georgia sits pristine in a Victorian chair with her feet resting on a footstool at the extreme right of the oil painting by Haverhill, Queen Victoria’s artist-friend, who was so fascinated with the Jubilee Singers’ music that he offered his services free of charge to the Queen to paint the group’s portrait. Today, we remember Georgia Minor Gordon Taylor, Nashville’s own sweet soprano who now rests in the presence of royalty in the “Brith Mansions Above”.
