ER and the Marian Anderson Concert

On April 9th, 1939 contralto Marian Anderson performed in front of the Lincoln Memorial for 75,000 people. This free, public concert was held on the National Mall after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall because of her race. Eleanor Roosevelt, who had already shown interest in African American civil rights through her advocacy for the NAACP, publicly resigned her membership in the DAR, remarking later in her My Day column that her resignation showed her public disapproval for the DAR’s policy. In her resignation letter, she explained that the DAR had “an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way, and it seem[ed] to [her] that [the] organization has failed.” Eleanor Roosevelt’s resignation from the DAR was her most public condemnation of segregation in the nation’s capital.

The public awareness sparked by ER’s actions prompted activists such as the NAACP’s Walter White and the Marian Anderson Citizens’ Committee to encourage government officials to support Anderson. ER decided to remain behind the scenes in order to give Anderson the spotlight. She was billed as one of the sponsoring members of the concert, but was out of town at the time of the performance. Two months after the concert ER invited Anderson to perform at the White House for the King and Queen of England during their royal visit to Washington in June of 1939.

Harold Ickes, FDR’s Secretary of the Interior, was instrumental in moving Anderson’s concert outdoors to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Ickes, a past president of the Chicago NAACP, introduced Anderson with a passionate denunciation of racism and praise for the man who inspired the monument they were standing on:

In this great auditorium under the sky all of us are free. When God gave us this wonderful outdoors and the sun, moon and the stars, He made no distinction of race or creed or color. And 130 years ago He sent to us one of His truly great in order that he might restore freedom to those from whom we had disregardfully taken it. In carrying out this task, Abraham Lincoln laid down his life, and so it is appropriate as it is fortunate that today we stand reverently and humbly at the base of this memorial to the great emancipator while glorious tribute is rendered to his memory by a daughter of the race from which he struck the chains of slavery…Genius, like justice, is blind…Genius draws no color line… And so it is fitting that Marian Anderson should raise her voice in tribute to the noble Lincoln, whom mankind will ever honor. We are grateful to Miss Anderson for coming here to sing to us today.

Anderson’s concert raised awareness of the growing tensions in America as a result of racial inequalities.

Later that year, Marian Anderson was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP. Later she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President John F. Kennedy. ER presented Anderson with the Spingarn Medal herself at the 30th annual NAACP conference. She remarked to Anderson: “Your achievement far transcends any race or creed."

The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers has prepared a case study on this concert for middle and high school teachers.