We’re savoring a glorious story we thought we knew in the long ordeal of racial justice in America. It was the singer Marian Anderson’s moment in 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution barred the black contralto from their Constitution Hall in Washington. With President and Eleanor Roosevelt’s encouragement, Marian Anderson decided instead to sing in front of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial.
Anthony Tommasini.
75,000 people came to listen outdoors and Marian Anderson opened the concert with that anthem of liberty, “My Country Tis of Thee.” It’s the crowning moment in our guest Anthony Tommasini’s book Voice of a Century, as the maestro Arturo Toscanini wanted to call her.
