...Lincoln Memorial? i am doing an essay about what happened when Eleanor Roosevelt asked Marion Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial. Give details and tell what happened there
When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow black singer Marion Anderson sing at Constitution Hall, the First Lady resigned her membership and made possible a stiring performance in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s144treasures.html
MARIAN ANDERSON: THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL CONCERT is the best and fairest racial document Savant has seen. The occasion is singer Marian Anderson's Easter Sunday rendition of 'America', a concert which came about because the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let Anderson sing. This so outraged Eleanor Roosevelt that she arranged a solo venue for the contralto at the Lincoln Memorial. The performance is preceded by an address to the massed audience of mostly blacks by the secretary of the interior. It now seems smug and patronizing, but was probably a courageous precedent at the time. Very touching, even when the newsreel cameras stop after only the first few bars of Anderson's performance. 1939.
Throughout her life, Marian had experienced racism, but the most famous event occurred in 1939. Hurok tried to rent Washington, D.C.’s Constitutional Hall, the city’s foremost center, but was told no dates were available. Washington was segregated and even the hall had segregated seating. In 1935, the hall instated a new clause: “concert by white artists only.” Hurok would have walked away with the response he’d received, but a rival manager asked about renting the hall for the same dates and was told they were open. The hall’s director told Hurok the truth, even yelling before slamming down the phone, “No Negro will ever appear in this hall while I am manager.”
The public was outraged, famous musicians protested, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), who owned the hall. Roosevelt, along with Hurok and Walter White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), encouraged Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to arrange a free open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for Easter Sunday. On April 9, Marian sang before 75,000 people and millions of radio listeners. About her trepidation before the event, she said:
“I said yes, but the yes did not come easily or quickly. I don’t like a lot of show, and one could not tell in advance what direction the affair would take. I studied my conscience. …. As I thought further, I could see that my significance as an individual was small in this affair. I had become, whether I like it or not, a symbol, representing my people.”
Several weeks later, Marian gave a private concert at the White House, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt was entertaining King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain.
In 1943, Marian performed at Constitution Hall, at a benefit for Chinese relief. She insisted the DAR suspend its segregated seating policy for the concert. Later, she said, “I felt no different than I had in other halls. There was no sense of triumph. I felt that it was a beautiful concert hall, and I was happy to sing in it.”
http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/ande-mar.htm