|
Roland Hayes
and Marian Anderson performing at the Lincoln Memorial
In
1939 Anderson was engaged to perform an Easter Sunday concert at
Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. When the managers of the Hall
- The Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) -
learned that a Black singer had been contracted, they cancelled the
concert. Ironically, it was this action that ended up as the catalyst
for Anderson's rise to national prominence as an artist. Not only did
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, then a member of D.A.R., resign in
protest of D.A.R.'s action, but U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold
Ickes arranged for Anderson to perform a free outdoor concert at the
base of the Lincoln Memorial (the site where Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. would later deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech as part of
the historic 1963 March on Washington). In response to Ickes' public
invitation, 75,000 people came to hear Marian Anderson sing. She became
an instant national symbol of human freedom and dignity. Anderson
included three spirituals in her 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert: "Gospel
Train," "Tramping," and "My Soul Is Anchored in the Lord." - Sweet
Chariot: Marian Anderson (online 2009)
LARGER SIZE beneath top photo |
|
|