Truly, history’s most famous concert is a matter for debate. But the performance of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9 of 1939 was memorable for a host of reasons. Anderson, a world-famous contralto, sang before an audience estimated at 75,000 on Easter Sunday that year. It’s a performance still remembered today. What made her performance so important?

The Story Behind Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial

Anderson’s career was already legendary by 1939. When she was young, her church congregation was so convinced of her talent it started a fund to get her professional voice lessons. She sang in the Paris Opera by 1935, entertained the heads of many European nations while touring throughout the 1930s, and performed at the White House during the Franklin Roosevelt administration on multiple occasions.

Thus, by 1939 Anderson was world-famous. But, for some Americans, she was infamous. The reason? Anderson was an African American.

In 1939 she tried to arrange a concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) owned the hall. The DAR refused to allow Anderson to perform because of her color. Uproar ensued.

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Setting Up the Concert of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial

This was not the first time Anderson had faced discrimination, of course. Although she toured in the South, Southern newspapers refused to call her Miss Anderson. That title seemed too respectful. Instead, she was Singer Anderson or Artist Anderson. She had to travel in the colored cars on trains, and some hotels refused her access to their dining room.

Luckily, several prominent Americans learned of Anderson’s rebuff by the DAR and acted. A “Marian Anderson Committee” formed. Eleanor Roosevelt, a member of the DAR, publicly resigned her membership in the organization. Several other prominent Americans did the same.

Eleanor Roosevelt also used her political clout to help arrange Anderson’s performance at the Lincoln Memorial. (Click Here for a short clip of her performance.) What had begun as a dismal defeat became a triumph. For one day at least.

Yet the whole story highlights a fundamental flaw in 1930s America. No African American, no matter how talented, could deploy their talents fully when whites didn’t want them to. The nation had one African American congressperson in 1937. Professional baseball held to its infamous color line until 1947. The career of Paul Robeson (click here to read about Robeson) is another case in point. I could go on.

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Anderson’s Later Career

Unlike the story of Paul Robeson, Anderson’s has at least somewhat of a happy ending. She became the first African American to perform at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Anderson a delegate to the United Nations in 1958. Lyndon Johnson gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.

For some reason, however, the music industry needed until 1991 to realize Anderson deserved a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. Anderson lived to accept the honor, at least. She died in 1993 at age 96.

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