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1939 Marian Anderson Concert:
In a direct challenge to segregation, Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939. The Daughters of the American Revolution had barred her from singing in Washington's Constitution Hall. In response, a broad coalition of civil rights advocates, with support from Eleanor Roosevelt and Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, organized a concert on the steps of the memorial. More than 75,000 people attended the performance, and millions more listened to the live radio broadcast. Anderson opened by pointedly singing "My Country Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty." The concert lasted less than an hour, but it honored Anderson's talents as a black artist and forever fixed the Lincoln Memorial as a symbolic shrine to civil rights. |