Marian Anderson

I’m one of the lucky people who got to hear Marian Anderson live. My dad and I got to speak with and shake her hand after her performance in Chautauqua. A decade later, I heard her again at The March on Washington, singing the National Anthem before Dr. King spoke. Arturo Toscanini described her as having a voice that comes along “once in a hundred years.” My ears told me the same thing and I can still hear her voice in my memory, singing both the classical and the spiritual repertory. Her recital at the Lincoln Memorial, arranged by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, when the Daughters of the American Revolution barred her from singing in Constitutional Hall because of her race, was a major event of the Civil Rights Movement. She would go on to break the color barrier at Constitution Hall, become the first African-American to solo at the Metropolitan Opera, and was well-loved by audiences both in America and all over the world.

A lengthy article in the New York Times, designed partly to review a new boxed set of her work, brought up strong emotional reactions as it described her career. She was a jewel, well-worth remembering and hearing again and again.