DC Like a Local

Tour guides just love to talk about Marian Anderson, but many folks have forgotten all about her.  She was a singer and she was African American.  On April 9, 1939, Easter Sunday afternoon, she sang from the steps of The Lincoln Memorial.  It was a total of 7 songs.  An estimated crowd of 75,000 people listened in person and more on the radio.  7 songs changed history.

In 1897 Marian Anderson was born to an extremely poor family in Philadelphia, PA.  In fact, she dropped out of high school at one point to earn money for her family.  She finished later, but she never went to college.  It was finances that prevented it.  Eventually, due to her talent, she was able to study privately in Europe.  She was rejected by the Philadelphia Music Academy, because, in those days, no African Americans need apply.

She just wanted to sing--everything from German lieder to spirituals.  When Arturo Toscanni first heard her contralto voice, he said, “Yours is a voice such as one hears once in a hundred years.”  She went to Europe because she had so much difficulty getting bookings in the US.  She jump started her career in Finland and then moved on to other Scandinavian countries; she even sang in Germany in the years just before the Nazis made that impossible. For many years Ms. Anderson’s faithful accompanist was Kosti Vehanen, a Finn.  In those days, for some, that was a scandal because he was White and Marian Anderson was not.  DC Like a Local has been finding a lot of Finnish connections recently.  When Vehanen first heard her sing, he said, 

 It was as though the room had begun to vibrate, as though the sound came from under the earth.... The sound I heard swelled to majestic power, the flower opened its petals to full brilliance; and I was enthralled by one of nature's rare wonders.

So, in 1939, after establishing her career in Europe, she just wanted to sing in Washington, DC, and Constitution Hall was the largest venue; it was owned by The Daughters of the American Revolution.  The DAR refused to book her.  When alternative dates were tried it became obvious that the reason for their reluctance was her race.  The DAR was an elitist society of women devoted to promoting patriotism.  If you are of a certain age, you remember those essay contests from high school.  “Patriotism”, as defined by the DAR, did not include equality—if you were not White.  It seems impossible today, with an African American president, that people could have thought like that only 70 years ago, but, thankfully, so much has changed.  You should know the rest:  Eleanor Roosevelt got involved and the concert happened, but, Ms. Anderson got a better gig—she had the Lincoln Memorial as a backdrop.  It marked a moment like no other.  Kosti Vehanen came out of a sick bed to accompany her.  No one who saw or heard the concert ever forgot it.  One of the songs she sang was "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen".  Fitting.

Life for Marian Anderson was never the same after that.  She lived into her 90’s.  In Rudolf Bing, the director of the Metropolitan Opera, asked her if she would like to sing with the Metropolitan.  She did in 1955 and broke the color bar there.  Of course, it was past the time when she could have had a career there, but she, as always, blazed the trail for others.  By the way she also broke the color bar at Constitution Hall, by in 1943.

In her later years Marian Anderson did a lot of charity work and even served as a delegate to the United Nations.  She died in 1993, having lived to see a lot of things change in America.  Insofar as the DAR is concerned, when this tour guide drives by that building, the remark is always that “the building is most famous for the concert that never took place.”  Interestingly, the DAR lists Marian Anderson as one of the people who have sung at Constitution Hall on its website, but the website is silent about what happened in 1939.  James DePriest, the conductor, is her nephew.

For more information on Marian Anderson, you might want to read The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America; by Raymond Arsenault.