Sound – Entire Concert-1
ANNOUNCER: Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. We're speaking to you from the steps of
the Lincoln Memorial in the Nation’s Capital.
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In 1939 in Washington, DC, blacks couldn’t go to the same schools as whites. AfricanAmericans weren’t allowed in eat in restaurants downtown. If an African-American man walked
into a clothing store, he wasn’t allowed to try on the clothes. African-American women were not
allowed to try on hats. Yet on Sunday, April 9th, 1939, a huge, mixed race crowd gathered at the
Lincoln Memorial
SOUND – Hearst Newsreel-1
ANNOUNCER: Seventy-five thousand massed before Lincoln Memorial to hear Marian
Anderson -- colored contralto -- make her Capitol debut at the Great Emancipator’s shrine.
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They came to hear a concert of classical music. And according to University of South
Florida professor Raymond Arsenault (ARE sin oh)
ARSENAULT-1: This was unprecedented.
SOUND – Entire Concert-2
ANNOUNCER: The National Broadcasting Company brings you a song recital by the gifted
Marian Anderson.
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Unprecedented for a number of reasons. First, there had never been a crowd this big at
the Lincoln Memorial before, even when it was dedicated seventeen years before.
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ANNOUNCER: We have an official announcement of the attendance: The United States Park
Police officially estimate the attendance at over 75,000.
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A crowd this big for an outdoor classical music concert was also unprecedented in the
United States. But most unprecedented of all, was the woman they had all come to hear. There,
in front of that enormous crowd was a 42 year old African-American singer named Marian
Anderson.
MUSIC – MARION ANDERSON SINGING O Mio Fernando from Donizetti’s La Favorite
The Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture has the
dress that Marian Anderson wore that day. It is that important to the history of Civil Rights and
to American history. One of the people who helped get the dress was museum curator, Dr.
Dwandalyn (D’WAHN dull in) Reece. (REES).
REECE-1: It was amazing to me that these – 75,000 people gathered in 1939 – some, probably
out of curiosity but also in solidarity of racially equality.
SOUND – Entire Concert-4
ANNOUNCER: Marian Anderson is singing this public concert at the Lincoln memorial because
she was unable to get an auditorium to accommodate the tremendous audience that wish to hear
her.
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For white people – including the ones who came out in racial solidarity – this concert
didn’t start out to be this big, and it didn’t start out to be about equal rights. It hadn’t started out
that way for Marian Anderson either. According to Dr. Arsenault, where it started was with
Marian Anderson’s managers looking for a place big enough for her to sing.
ARSENAULT-2: She was touring all over the United States. She was filling the largest concert
halls in the nation, sometimes five and six thousand people.
In ___date__, the Annual Music Series at Howard University invited Ms. Anderson to
come to Washington and sing. The problem was, Washington didn’t have a lot of big theaters or
concert halls in those days. The only place that even came close was Constitution Hall, near the
Washington Monument. It was run by the D-A-R – the Daughters of the American Revolution.
But while white people weren’t out to make a point with this concert, Dr. Reece says that wasn’t
the case for leaders of Washington, DC’s African-American community.
REECE-2: The whole event – instead of being this random occurrence that just happened, and
we made it into this Civil Right moment – it was much more strategic.
This was not the first time Howard University had invited Marian Anderson to sing in the
city. It also wasn’t the first time they had asked the D-A-R to use Constitution Hall. Every other
time, the D-A-R turned them down. Constitution Hall was segregated. No black people were
allowed to go in there, and they certainly weren’t allowed to sing on the stage.
REECE-3: Knowing the policies of the DAR and Constitution Hall, they strategically
approached them once again to see if she could perform there.
In the past, Dr. Reece says, when the D-A-R had said “No,” the Howard University
officials had gone away quietly.
REECE-4: This time, the response was different.
About the only other place that would hold a big-enough crowd was the auditorium at the
city’s Central High School, which – as Doctor Arsenault points out – was
ARSENAULT-3: The largest white high school in the District of Columbia.
White high school. Washington was a segregated city in 1939. Black and white students
went to different schools. To get Central High School auditorium for the concert, the Howard
University organizers had to ask permission from the city school board. And again – Dr. Reece
says – just as they did with Constitution Hall, they walked into the negotiation with a strategy.
What they wanted was
REECE-5: To look at the local schools and integrating the schools and the facilities for AfricanAmericans. What they seemed to be trying to do was to make inroads that were going to hold
fast. Not just the one-shot deal and then just go back to business as usual.
The school board knew what they were doing, so they said “Yes,” but Dr. Arsenault says,
ARSENAULT-4: They put so many conditions on it – in other words they made the offer, but they
didn’t. They knew that the Howard University was going to turn it down.
And they did. So now what? Marian Anderson was coming to town, the concert was
planned, people bought tickets, but there was no place to hold the concert.
SOUND – Entire Concert-5
ANNOUNCER: Miss Anderson will be introduced by Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes after
which she will sing a group of three songs.
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Of all people – in walked the Secretary of the Interior. A man named Harold Ickes. Mr.
Ickes believed in racial equality at a time when most white Americans didn’t. And he had an
important person working with him – the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. When the D-A-R
turned Howard University down, Mrs. Roosevelt – who was a member of the D-A-R – said she
was so outraged, she was quitting. That got a lot of attention, and Harold Ickes had an idea that
would generate even more. He knew a place that would hold all the people who wanted to show
up. Hold the concert, he said, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
SOUND – Entire Concert-6
ICKES: In this great auditorium under the sky, all of us are free (applause). When God gave us
this wonderful outdoors, and the sun, the moon and stars, He made no distinction of race or
creed or color. (applause)
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Holding the concert outside was a fantastic idea, everyone agreed. Everyone, that is,
except Marion Anderson.
ARSENAULT-5: She was very hesitant to sing.
There were a lot of reasons why, Dr. Arsenault says. For one:
ARSENAULT-6: She had never sung outside before. She was accustomed to classical music
halls, where the acoustics were very carefully controlled.
Another thing: Even though the concert was going to be in April,
ARSENAULT-7: It was going to be cold and possibly snowing. It didn’t seem like a very good
prospect to her.
She was so worried, in fact, the she told her manager that
ARSENAULT-8: She had decided that she could not go through with it.
SOUND – Entire Concert-7
ICKES: Abraham Lincoln laid down his life. And so it is as appropriate as it is fortunate that
today we stand reverently and humbly at the base of this memorial to the Great Emancipator
while glorious tribute is rendered to his memory by a daughter of the race from which he struck
the chains of slavery (applause)
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She also worried about violent people who – maybe – didn’t think a black person should
be getting this attention – might disrupt the concert and maybe kill someone. Maybe even her.
SOUND – HEARST NEWSREEL-2
ANNOUNCER: Refusal of the DAR to let her use their hall – and a countrywide controversy.
With this great gathering as the climax.
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As we all know now, Marian Anderson overcame her fear and the concert did go on. Just
one more hurdle that Marian Anderson had to overcome in her life.
ARSENAULT-9: She was forced to go up the freight elevators in the hotels and to eat alone in
her room because she knew she wasn’t welcome in the hotel dining room, there were lots and
lots of those slights. And she bore them with great dignity.
It was something she had learned during the course of a very difficult childhood.
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ANNOUNCER: Born of humble parents in Philadelphia’s Negro Quarter, she lived as a child in
a single, rented room with her two sisters and her parents.
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ARSENAULT-10: When she was a young girl, her father died. That put her and her two sisters
and her mother in very difficult circumstances. Her mother would scrub floors at Wanamaker’s
Department Store all hours. Marian Anderson had to drop out of school. She didn’t graduate
from high school until she was 24 years old.
She sang in church when she was growing up in Philadelphia and got people’s attention.
SOUND – Entire Concert-9
ANNOUNCER: At the age of 8, she was called "The Baby Contralto" and won her first fee -- 50
cents.
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Being African-American though, when she decided she liked classical music, she found
she couldn’t get formal training at music schools.
ARSENAULT-11: They turned her away.
Dr. Arsenault says she was told:
ARSENAULT-12: You don’t have the right colored skin to train at this school.” Fortunately, she
found a white teacher, who took a chance on her, Giuseppe Boghetti, who took a chance on her
and he became her tutor and sponsored her in competitions in New York.
MUSIC – MARION ANDERSON SINGING SHUBERT'S AVE MARIA
She started her music career, latching on, originally to a man named Roland Hayes.
ARSENAULT-13: Who was a great black singer in the early part of the 20th century. Roland
Hayes was one of the first black singers to break out of the stereotype of just singing negro folk
songs. He sang German Lieder. That’s what she wanted to do.
MUSIC - ROLAND HAYES SINGING DU BIST DIE RUH
Marian Anderson fo und she couldn’t get work in America, so she moved to Europe
where she became an enormous star. There, Dr. Reece says,
REECE-6: She not only did the German lieder, the Italian arias, she was doing Russian and
Finnish folk songs. So she was really stretching her repertoire showing what an artist could be.
It was extremely important at this time that Marian Anderson was able to succeed. As
Dr. Arsenault points out, there were plenty of people in this country who thought that classical
music was something that was just too difficult for African-Americans to master.
ARSENAULT-14: Part of the stereotyping of blacks was to say, that they were good dancers and
they were musical and they were good singers. But it was all done in the notion that it was the
singing that didn’t take discipline. It wasn’t something that you studied, it was something that
you did naturally.
MUSIC – MARIAN ANDERSON SINGING BACH’S ES IST VOLLBRACHT
Marian Anderson becoming a star showed that stereotype to be wrong. By being such a
success, Dr. Recce says, she showed that
REECE-7: African-Americans can excel in this area too, so we are not limited to singing just the
spirituals.
This was a time – remember – when all across the country, African-Americans were not
allowed to use the same toilet as white people. So Marian Anderson standing up on the great
stages of Europe and singing classical music – and Marian Anderson standing on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial – beside the statue of the president who freed the slaves, it made her a symbol,
though Dr. Reece says,
REECE-8: Marian Anderson was kind of a reluctant symbol.
But at a time when most whites thought blacks just couldn’t measure up, she was an
important symbol because of how she achieved her success.
REECE-9: Just by being good at her craft, that’s all she was doing. She was being excellent at
her craft, took what she did seriously, and did it well.
MUSIC – MARION ANDERSON SINGING MY COUNTRY TIS OF THEE
In 1939, when Marian Anderson sang at the Washington Monument, the great battles of
the Civil Rights Movement were still many years off. It would be a long time before blacks
could vote, serve on juries, be elected mayor or serve on the police force all over the country.
And to get there would take many struggles – some of them violent. But according to Dr. Reece,
Marion Anderson’s concert should be seen as equal – just as important – as any Civil Rights
action that followed it.
REECE-10: When we talk about the Civil Rights Movement, we really kind of focus on the 50s
and 60s. It didn’t just kind of blossom up and come out out of nowhere.
The people who came first – like Marian Anderson – paved the way, and even inspired
the Civil Rights heroes who are better known.
REECE-11: That activism – it just doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There’s times where Martin
Luther King has spoken of that concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
The road to equality was a long one, Dr. Reece says.
REECE-12: This fight did not just start at one point.
The battle for equality had many heroes. Some of them made history just by opening
their mouths to sing.
MUSIC
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