Contralto Marian Anderson

At a time when African American entertainers have a high public and career profile among whites as well as blacks, it is remarkable to contemplate that as recently as 66 years ago--and as long ago as 20 years before the civil rights movement effected major social change in America--the custom and practice of overt racial discrimination and legally sanctioned racial segregation were a matter of routine and black-letter law. Like other American black artists, Marian Anderson was obliged to pursue a career as a classical-canon concert singer outside the US. Born in South Philadelphia, Anderson was recognized as a "singing prodigy" while she was still a teenager and sang in the all-black People's Chorus, and before audiences at black churches. Segregation prevented Anderson from studying at a Philadelphia music school, and her high school education was also delayed. However, the leadership of the People's Chorus helped organize funding for private study in the city, first with black contralto voice coach Agnes Reifsnyder (Keiler 33-4), whose assistant rather than student she eventually became; Reif

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Toscanini reportedly said: "What I heard today one is privileged to hear only once in a hundred years" (Teachout 54). In 1935 Anderson returned to the US, under the theatrical management of the impresario Sol Hurok, and she gave sold-out recitals nationwide, under the batons of Dimitri Mitropoulos, Pierre Monteux, Eugene Ormandy, Bruno Walter, and other major orchestra conductors of the period. Additionally, she regularly recorded for RCA and sang on nationwide radio; the prime years of her voice were the 1930s and 1940s. In 1938, she was earning $238,000 a year, the equivalent of $2.7 million today (Keiler passim). Nevertheless, the weight of evidence about her performing career is on the side of the view that "she was denied a wider audience due to the racism and segregation of her era" (Hunter-Gault). In 1939, with Anderson acknowledged as a top-tier concert artist of national American scope, it may have seemed a perfectly ordinary step for Sol Hurok to arrange for her to give a concert in Constitution Hall. Constitution Hall was owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), which explained that the date requested was not available. However, when Hurok requested alternate dates he learned that "DAR policy also sti
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Approximate Word count = 1729
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)