01/20/2020
Take a watch when Marian Anderson sung on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In honor of Martin Luther King Jr., here is a moment in our history to share. Eighty-one years ago this year on April 9, 1939, as Hitler's troops advanced in Europe and the Depression took its toll in the U.S., one of the most important musical events of the 20th century took place on the National Mall in Washington. After being refused a concert hall to perform in, at 42, world-famous contralto Marian Anderson sung on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to 75,000 people gathered on the National Mall, the very steps where later in 1963 King would give his historic I Have A Dream speech. The background is that Anderson was invited to sing in Washington by Howard University. And because of Anderson's international reputation, the university needed to find a place large enough. The Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall was such a place but Anderson had been refused its use because there was a white-artist-only clause printed in every DAR contract. Anderson and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and others worked to have the concert on the Lincoln Memorial steps and the impact of Anderson's courageous, freedom affirming and defiant performance was truly stunning, inspiring and far-reaching then and through the years.
Marian Anderson, contralto, was denied the right to perform at Constitution Hall by the DAR because of her color. Instead, and at the urging of Eleanor Roose...
