“… On Easter Sunday, 1939, the contralto Marian Anderson sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial [in the US capital, Washington DC]. The Daughters of the American Revolution had refused to let her appear at Constitution Hall, Washington’s largest concert venue, because of the color of her skin. In response, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the D.A.R., and President Roosevelt gave permission for a concert on the Mall. Seventy-five thousand people gathered to watch Anderson perform.“
The seventeenth anniversary of that event was yesterday. An appreciation of Anderson’s career and the historical significance of that event (Barack Obama chose Aretha Franklin to sing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” at his inauguration–the song Anderson’s performing in the newsreel footage above) by Alex Ross in The New Yorker
