1939: Marian Anderson sings to the nation: barred from Washington's 'whites only' Constitutional Hall, Anderson performed a the Lincoln Memorial--and helped set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement.

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CRITICAL THINKING

Briefly review the civil rights movement.

* In what ways did Marian Anderson's performance at the Lincoln Memorial set the stage for the civil rights movement? What did this event, as well as her career, indicate about Americans' views on race?

* What were the most important results of the civil rights movement? Why did it take decades to achieve some of its most important goals?

WRITING PROMPT

Write an essay about a minority group's struggle for civil rights, either today or in the past. Discuss the group's approach to achieving its goals, what obstacles it faced or is facing, and what rights, if any, it is still seeking.

DEBATE

Support or refute: Now that we have a black President, it is fair to say that the goals of the civil rights movement have been met, and equality for all has been achieved.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What is ironic about Anderson being barred by the D.A.R. from singing at Constitution Hall?

How do you think Eleanor Roosevelt's public support of Anderson and equality for blacks in the 1930s was received? Explain.

Why do you think the Lincoln Memorial was chosen for Anderson's outdoor concert in 1939, and 24 years later for the March on Washington?

How might Anderson's public stand on racial inequality have influenced future civil rights leaders?

What color barriers have been broken since the civil right movement, and which do you think still exist?

How and why have the arts and entertainment played a key part in social movements?

FAST FACT

Anderson debuted with the New York Philharmonic in 1925; she won the opportunity in a singing contest.

WEB WATCH

www.mariananderson.org

The Marian Anderson Historical Society Web site offers a biography, photos, audio recordings, and much more.

By late afternoon on April 9, 1939, a crowd of 75,000 had gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. It was Easter Sunday, and they had come to hear a concert like no other the nation had ever witnessed. At 5 p.m., Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes appeared on the steps to introduce the performer--Marian Anderson.

"In this great auditorium under the sky," Ickes said, "all of us are free."

Wearing a long fur coat on a chilly afternoon, Anderson stepped up to a row of microphones that would carry her voice to a radio audience across the nation, as well as to the throng of whites, blacks, college students, and government officials gathered before her. She began to sing: "My country, 'tis of thee/Sweet land of liberty ..."

The granddaughter of slaves, Anderson had performed in concert halls all over the world. At the invitation of First Lady Eleanor Roosevdt, she had sung at the White House. But she had been barred from singing at Washington's most prestigious venue, Constitution Hall, because she was black.

That decision, by the hall's owner, the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.), would have significant, if unintended, consequences for the nation. With the help of President Roosevelt's administration, Anderson instead gave a public concert 70 years ago--an event that raised the nation's consciousness about race in America and helped set the stage for the civil rights movement.

The concert "became a point of organized protest against racial injustice in America," says Juan Williams of Fox News and National Public Radio, author of Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965. "But for the first time, it was protest with the stamp of the government behind it."

By the time she reluctantly became a national symbol in 1939, Anderson was already recognized not only in the U.S. but in Europe as an accomplished singer. That success hadn't come easily. As a girl in Philadelphia, she had displayed remarkable vocal gifts singing with her church choir. But since most classical music schools wouldn't accept blacks, she studied privately with vocal teachers.

In 1922, at 25, she began touring the United States, performing mostly at black churches and colleges in the South. Anderson and the pianist who accompanied her rode in filthy "Jim Crow" cars on segregated trains, and few hotels or restaurants would accommodate them. In train stations, there were separate waiting areas for blacks.

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A SEGREGATED CAPITAL

"I knew about the separate waiting rooms," Anderson wrote in her autobiography My Lord, What a Morning. "But no matter how much you are prepared and steeled for them, they have their effect on you."

Like most classical musicians at the time, Anderson knew that she would have to study and perform in Europe to be taken seriously. In 1930, she was awarded a fellowship to study in Berlin and gave a concert there to rave reviews.

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For the next few years, she sang in Europe, and also performed in concert halls in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, building a strong following among both blacks and whites.

When she performed in Washington, still a segregated city in the 1930s, a theater or high school auditorium had to be found to accommodate a black singer and a racially mixed audience.

A singer of Anderson's stature would ordinarily have been expected to perform at Constitution Hall. The owner, the D.A.R., is a women's organization of descendants of those who fought on the American side in the Revolution; Constitution Hall, just off the National Mall a few blocks from the White House, is part of its national headquarters, and at the time was home to the National Symphony and the Washington Opera.

But the D.A.R. allowed only whites to perform there, and when concert promoters decided to challenge the policy in 1939 and requested the use of the hall for a recital by Anderson, they were told it was "unavailable."

Anderson, however, had some important allies in the Roosevelt administration--most notably Mrs. Roosevelt, who had been using her position as First Lady to advocate for social causes, such as ending racial disparities in public education and racial inequality in the military.

When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) urged musicians and other public figures to send telegrams to the D.A.R. in support of Anderson, one of the first to do so was Mrs. Roosevelt, herself a D.A.R. member. She wrote that Washington shouldn't be "deprived of hearing Marian Anderson, a great artist."

The N.A.A.C.P. pointed out the irony that a venue named after the Constitution would exclude blacks. Interior Secretary Ickes also wrote the D.A.K, calling their decision "an astounding discrimination against equal rights."

But the D.A.R. remained steadfast, leading Eleanor Roosevelt to publicly resign her membership. "You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way, and it seems to me your organization has failed," she wrote ha her letter of resignation.

SENATORS & JUSTICES

With Constitution Hall unwilling to host Anderson, Ickes, who as Interior Secretary controlled access to federal parks and monuments, stepped in at the request of the N.A.A.C.P. to arrange an outdoor concert at the Lincoln Memorial. (Ickes first asked Franklin Roosevelt for permission, and the President reportedly said: "I don't care if she sings from the top of the Washington Monument, as long as she sings.")

When April 9 arrived, a special detail of the Washington police was dispatched for crowd control and to protect against possible disruptions by groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

But the crowd was peaceful, and enormous. By the time Anderson began to sing, it stretched the entire length of the Mall--from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. Several Senators and Supreme Court Justices were seated near the platform as Anderson sang a selection of classical songs, Italian arias, and black spirituals.

At the end of the half-hour recital, the audience went wild with applause. "I can't tell you what you have done for me today," Anderson told the crowd. "I thank you from the bottom of my heart again and again."

Anderson's powerful performance, and the support she had gotten from the Roosevelts, had a lasting impact on the nation.

"She performed magnificently that day, clearly revealing the ignorance of American racism," says Aldon D. Morris, author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement. "She also inspired African-Americans to challenge racial inequality because she took such a public stand."

Although the concert made Anderson a legendary figure in the struggle for civil rights, she later wrote that she'd been uncomfortable with the controversy: "I was saddened and ashamed. I was sorry for the people who had precipitated the affair. I felt their behavior stemmed from a lack of understanding." (The D.A.R. amended its policy in 1952, and Anderson appeared at a desegregated Constitution Hall the next year.)

The 1939 concert marked the beginning of decades of dramatic changes involving race in America (see timeline). Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball eight years later, in 1947, when he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. And the following year, President Harry S. Truman integrated the U.S. military.

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated schools were unconstitutional. A year later, a black seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery; Alabama, and another chapter in the struggle for civil rights began.

Anderson would sing again at the Lincoln Memorial. This time, it was before a crowd of 200,000 at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, the same day that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

In 2005, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in honor of Anderson, who died at age 96 in 1993. The dedication ceremony was held at Constitution Hall.

"We deeply regret that Marian Anderson was not given the opportunity to perform her 1939 Easter concert in Constitution Hall," said Presley Merritt Wagoner, president of the D.A.R. "I stand before you today wishing that history could be rewritten, knowing that it cannot, and assuring you that the D.A.R. has learned from the past."

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1939

Denied the opportunity to sing in Washington's Constitution Hart, Marian Anderson gives a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

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1947

Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the color barrier in major league baseball.

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1948

President Harry S. Truman signs executive orders integrating the military and eliminating racial discrimination in federal employment.

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1954

In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregated schools are unconstitutional.

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1955

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Martin Luther King Jr., begins after Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger.

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1957

Federal and National Guard troops intervene on behalf of nine black students blocked from entering art-white Central. High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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1960

Black college students stage a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. Six months later, the students are served.

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1961

Freedom Riders testing new desegregation laws for interstate buses in the South are attacked by angry mobs.

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1963

More than 200,000 people march in Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech.

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1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing segregation in schools, public places, and employment.

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1965

The Voting Rights Act outlaws literacy tests, poll taxes, and other obstacles to black voter registration.

QUIZ 3

1 Which of the following did not happen as part of Marian Anderson's career?

a Studying and performing in Europe

b Having difficulty finding a music school that would accept black students

c Being barred from singing at the White House

d Experiencing segregation while traveling

2 Which First Lady supported Anderson and was a strong proponent of civil, rights?

a Eleanor Roosevelt

b Edith Roosevelt

c Helen Taft

d Florence Harding

3 Anderson was not allowed to perform at Constitution Hall because

a no black artists were allowed to perform in Washington, D.C.

b the organization that owned it would allow only white artists to perform there.

c her fee was too expensive.

d she was not a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

4 Put the following events in order:

a The D.A.R. refused to book Anderson's concert.

b Anderson began touring black churches and Southern colleges in the U.S.

c Anderson performed at a free concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

d Anderson performed at Constitution Hall.

e Anderson studied and toured in Europe.

f The D.A.R. opened Constitution Hall.

g Anderson sang in her church's choir.

h The military was desegregated.

i Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her membership in the D.A.R.

j Well-known public figures sent the D.A.R. telegrams in support of Anderson.

5 The second time Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial

a she was met with disparaging comments from the crowd.

b she was asked to perform at Constitution Hall.

c was shortly after segregated schools were deemed unconstitutional.

d Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

IN-DEPTH QUESTIONS

1 Why was the choice of the Lincoln Memorial for Anderson's concert significant? What message might it have sent and to whom?

2 What do you think Anderson might have said or felt if she knew that a commemorative stamp would be issued in her honor, with the dedication ceremony at Constitution Hall?

ANSWER KEY

1 [c] Being barred from singing at the White House

2 [a] Eleanor Roosevelt

3 [b] the organization that owned it would allow only white artists to perform there.

4 g, b, f, e, a, j, i, c, d, h

5 [d] Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.