This newsreel footage from the Hearst Metrotone News collection depicts Marian Anderson’s Easter Sunday “Freedom Concert” at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939.
Anderson was one of the most renowned and accomplished concert singers of the 20th century. Her artistic achievements also carry tremendous historic significance. Her career broke boundaries at a time when opera and classical music were almost exclusively white fields. Between the years of 1925 and 1965, she made multiple tours of Europe and the United States, enjoying remarkable success in the face of challenges posed by racial prejudice and segregation. In 1955, Anderson became the first African American performer to sing at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera. Her success opened doors for other African American singers and performers such as Dorothy Maynor, Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Grace Bumbry and Shirley Verrett.
In the spring of 1939, the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) refused to book Anderson at their Constitution Hall venue in Washington, D.C., on the basis of a “white performers only” policy. In response, a coalition of organizations and public figures including Eleanor Roosevelt and the NAACP came together to move the concert to a different venue: the Lincoln Memorial. Anderson sang “America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)” to an integrated audience of an estimated 75,000 attendees at the concert, which was broadcast on the radio and circulated theatrically in newsreels. The landmark event was an important symbolic victory for the civil rights movement. —Russell Zych, Digital Communications Assistant
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Newsreel footage from the UCLA Film & Television Archive's Hearst Metrotone News Collection. Hearst footage may be licensed for film, television and other productions. Learn more: ucla.in/2g6VNJx
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