By Jessica MasonJan 18th, 2021, 5:55 pm
The Lincoln Memorial is iconic in the history of the Civil Rights movement. It was on the steps of the memorial to the President who signed the emancipation proclamation that Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech (which this country continues to view through a sanitized lens) during the March on Washington in 1963. And just 24 years prior, the Memorial was the sight of another watershed moment for civil rights and the fight against racial prejudice and segregation that is often forgotten: the groundbreaking concert from singer Marian Anderson on April 9, 1939.
In 1939, Marian Anderson was at the height of her operatic career. The contralto had sung on stages across Europe to immense acclaim and “Marian fever” from fans, finding greater success there than she had in American due to racism, but her star was now rising in the US as well. Since 1935, Anderson had given an annual concert at historically Black Howard Uni