Marian Anderson: Black Lives Matter in Classical Music
On April 9, 1939, one of the most famous women in the world ascended the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to sing to a crowd of over 75,000 people. The monument had yet to become the symbol of civil rights that it is today. No demonstration, march, or speech on the subject had ever been performed there. In fact, it was racism that brought Marian Anderson to the steps in the first place.
Anderson had only just returned to the United States a few years prior, after a decade in Europe where she’d worked to establish her career like many entertainers before her, such as Josephine Baker and Roland Hayes. Her family had begged her to flee Nazi Germany, so she came home. She was one of the last Black musicians to continue performing in Central Europe during the rise of Nazi Germany, with her final performance occurring in November 1937.
While in Europe, Anderson was known to perform despite racist refusals from concert halls. For example, after being declined for a concert at the prestigious Salzburg Festival, she held clandestine performances in nearby venues until her very defiance, in the end, solidified her international renown. After having seen one of the Salzburg concerts, famed conductor Arturo Toscanini called Anderson’s voice an instrument that “one is privileged to hear only once in a hundred years.”
By the time she returned to the United States, she was a star. She had also become an artist accustomed to using her talent to break barriers. Consequently, she soon began working with the nation’s premier civil rights organization, the NAACP, performing annual concerts in Washington, DC.
By 1936, the Marian Anderson Committee — comprised of the NAACP, Howard University, and Anderson’s manager, Sol Hurok — sensed that Anderson’s audience size had outgrown her usual venues, so they solicited a performance with Constitution Hall, which was managed by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The DAR infamously declined the request, which resulted in one of their members, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, resigning her membership in protest. She then enlisted then Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes, to coordinate an outdoor performance suitable for Ms. Anderson’s talents, and later invited Anderson to perform a recital at the White House.
The rest is history. Anderson performed before a massive integrated crowd on a blisteringly cold Easter Sunday. There were many important political figures and dignitaries present for her concert, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A future leader — then, just ten years old — also happened to be in the audience, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
King later said:
She sang as never before, with tears in her eyes. When the words of ‘America’ and ‘Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen’ rang out over that great gathering, there was a hush on the sea of uplifted faces, Black and white, and a new baptism of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
King remembered it so well that the venue became, for him, synonymous with civil rights. He was so fond of it that when he began to emerge as a leader himself, he suggested the location for several civil rights marches — including the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where he delivered the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, and where he invited Anderson to sing again.
Marian Anderson’s achievements were many. This incredible story is but one in the life of an incredibly special woman. Born the daughter of two hard-working parents only one generation removed from slavery, Anderson became one of the most well-revered women in history.
A concert artist until the end, Anderson sang in only one opera in her entire life, despite many offers throughout her career. This was for her debut in Un Ballo in Maschera with the Metropolitan Opera, who symbolically added her to their roster to ensure that the icon would be the first Black artist to sing with the company.
The honor was significant to her. Of it she said:
The chance to be a member of the Metropolitan has been a highlight of my life…It has meant much to me and to my people. I have been [privileged] to serve as a symbol.
Thank you, Ms. Anderson.
