Ella Sheppard · The Soda Fountain

Characters / Ella Sheppard

Ella Sheppard is a student at Fisk University, a school founded to educate newly freed slaves after the Civil War. Olivia meets her when a portrait of Frederick Douglass at Whit's End comes to life and carries her back to that struggling campus. Ella is one of the voices that caught the ear of George White, the school's treasurer, when he heard students singing the spirituals their families passed down through slavery - songs full of sorrow, faith, and hope. At first she and her fellow students, among them Benjamin Holmes, refused to share those songs with white audiences they felt could never understand them. She sings in the touring choir White forms to rescue the school, facing cold, hunger, and hostile crowds on the road.

Appearances

3 episodes Art Text No.

3 of 3 0666 The Jubilee Singers With Fisk University on the brink of collapse, a weary group of student singers must decide whether to keep performing on a grueling tour that has cost them their health, their dignity, and nearly all hope.

2 of 3 0665 The Jubilee Singers A Fisk choir and their determined director set out on a perilous tour to sing their school out of debt, facing hostility and hardship at every stop.

1 of 3 0664 The Jubilee Singers When Olivia dismisses school as pointless, a portrait of Frederick Douglass introduces her to the students of a struggling university whose only hope may be the songs they carry.