Marian Anderson
Born on February 27, 1897, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to John Berkley Anderson and Anna Delilah Rucker, Marian had two younger sisters, Alyse and Ethel. Anna had been a teacher in Virginia but because of education requirements, couldn’t teach in Philadelphia. This restriction only applied to blacks, not whites. She supplemented the family income by providing day care for children, working in a factory, scrubbing floors and taking in laundry. John sold coal and ice at a railroad terminal in town and later had a small liquor trade. All Marian’s grandparents had been slaves. Benjamin Anderson and Mary Holmes Anderson moved from Virginia to Philadelphia in the 1890s a few years before their granddaughter was born. They may have lived in the City of Brotherly Love, but racism there wasn’t much different from the South, as witnessed by the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896.
Marian had musical talents at the age of two, banging on a toy piano and singing songs she made up. Two years later, family members recognized her talent. After she turned six, she became a member of the Union Baptist junior choir and then played a violin that her Aunt Mary gave her. She played it until the strings broke. She had the ability, but funds weren’t available for music lessons – something that she would experience again. Choir director Alexander Robinson was the first musician to realize her voice was unlike any other and inspired her. The group sang before older children in Sunday school and Marian stood out. Soon she was singing in a quartet, in duets and solos, all over the city.
She entertained at gatherings for charity, the YWCA and YMCA at the age of eight. Marian was the youngest member of the People’s Chorus, under the direction of founder Emma Azalia Hackley. She had solos with the group, which traveled to white neighborhoods as well as black, enlarging her experience. Marian attended an integrated school in the early 1900s and was a happy child. The Andersons may have lived in poverty, but they supported each other and enjoyed security in spiritual, cultural and emotional ways. Tragedy struck when John had an accident at work and then died at age 34 of heart failure a month later. The family moved into the home of Benjamin and Mary Anderson, which already housed boarders, children and grandchildren. Somehow they managed, but Marian’s grandmother was dictatorial. Marian became close with Benjamin, but sadly, he died not long after John perished. Mary made the young singer find a job rather than attend high school, much to Marian and Anna’s dismay. One thing Mary couldn’t do was to prevent Anderson from singing.
In 1910, she joined the senior Union Baptist choir and met singer extraordinaire Roland Hayes through Reverend Wesley Parks, which made a huge difference in her life. He followed her mentor until he died in 1977. Hayes encouraged her and hoped she could be trained professionally, particularly by a white instructor. When she initiated efforts to follow Roland’s advice, she saw racism, or maybe the money issue came into play, once more. Receiving assurance that the people of Union Baptist would handle the costs, she tried to apply to the Philadelphia Music Academy. She waited in line but was ignored when her term came. She was soon told, we don’t take colored. She was to see much more racism throughout her life. She and her family had to wait longer for service. There were places in town where all people could go, and there were others where some of us could not go. There were girls we played with and others we didn’t. There were parties we went to and some we didn’t.
The racism of Philadelphia followed in the footsteps of the Jim Crow South, Social Darwinism and tensions brought about by the increasing African American population. Blacks more than tripled compared to only a sixty percent growth of whites in the city. The First World War provided jobs for blacks, overseas and in factories. When it ended, work was hard to find for people of color and those who had served their country returned to find more discrimination in employment. In Coatesville, not far from the city, a young black was taken from jail and burned to death in August 1911. Seven years later, a race riot began in Philadelphia when rocks were thrown at probation officer Adelia Bond.
Anderson decided that she’d find an African American voice teacher and she wouldn’t settle for second best. She and Mary Saunders Patterson both knew Roland Hayes. An interview between instructor and pupil was arranged by John Thomas Butler, who knew of Anderson’s ability and offered to pay her tuition. They bonded and with Paterson’s guidance, Marian improved in many areas and was encouraged in her musical career. Living in Harlem at the age of 18, she sang at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Many felt she needed a more formal education. Through the efforts of Philadelphia Tribune editor G. Grant Williams and the People’s Chorus, a benefit concert in June 1915 was set up to raise funds for a young singer who Williams said, without a doubt, possesses one of the best contralto voices ever heard in this city for one of her years.
The benefit brought in $250, enabling her to study under contralto Agnes Reifsnyder, who was influential in Marian enrolling at William Penn High School as an eighteen-year-old freshman. She didn’t do well in the business courses but music kept her there. Eventually, she transferred to South Philadelphia High School for Girls. With the People’s Chorus, she sang the solo contralto part of Handel’s Messiah with Roland Hayes in the lead. A writer from the Crisis, the NAACP magazine, praised the chorus, adding, but most exquisite was the dark, sweet full-blossomed contralto.
Hayes was impressed and invited Anderson to join him, Harry Burleigh and a black chorus in Boston that was to perform Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah. After Roland’s instructor Arthur Hubbard heard Anderson sing, he thought she should move to Boston and become his student. In order to cover the tuition, he offered her the chance for her to stay at his home and work. When her grandmother heard of this possibility, she nixed the deal, even with the fact that Marian would be working off her tuition. Mary felt that a young girl shouldn’t be far from home.
The young singer returned to Philly. Invited to sing at a Christmas concert in Savannah, Georgia, in December 1917, she and her mother boarded a train headed for DC. In the nation’s capital, they changed trains and were led to the Jim Crow car. The car was filthy and you could barely see out the windows. The lighting and ventilation were bad. It was a horrible ride. Fortunately, when they arrived in Savannah, they were greeted with a warm welcome.
Having been in integrated schools and living in mixed neighborhoods, Marian noticed that the audience in Savannah was no different, as about a third of the people at the concert were white. However, the blacks were seated in the back while the others were near the singers. She impressed the listeners and critics. The Savannah Press offered: Her voice is exquisitely rich and full and mellow. Her control is marvelous, the music just seeming to come without any effort from the singer. The Savannah Morning News said she had one of the most remarkable voices ever heard in Savannah.
She performed at the Academy of Music in early 1918 and one white critic praised her while cautioning that she needed to continue in her music study. She heeded the advice of the reviewer and a year later sang again at the same venue. This was followed up with another trip down south when she appeared at Fisk University in Tennessee and other black churches and schools. While on the train her accompanist, Billy King, asked the porter about the possibility of some food. He was kind enough to seat Anderson and King in the dining car, but behind some curtains. This is where the waiters ate, but the portions were large and the chef and waiters gave it something extra. The crew and the musicians appreciated what the others had done.
The next stop was Chicago in June 1919 to attend an operatic course of study by Oscar Saenger. July 27 brought the worst race riot in the history of Chicago on a Lake Michigan beach, resulting in 500 injuries and forty deaths. It started when a black student on a raft was harassed by a while policeman. Soon he was hit by a rock that someone tossed and knocked off the raft. Lifeguards were prohibited from saving him and he drowned. This occurred while a recital was about to begin at Grace Presbyterian Church with Marian and others from the National Association of Negro Musicians. All the vocalists performed splendidly, but Anderson stood out. Chicago defender critic Nora Douglas Holt mentioned,
The greatest height was reached when Marian Anderson, a high school girl, exhibited a voice equal to that of Rosa Raisa, the wonderful contralto of the Chicago Grand Opera Company, and everyone stood and acclaimed her with cries of bravos, while tears of joy were in the eyes of many of the musicians who felt that a new era in music has arisen for our people.
Almost $200 was raised for a scholarship fund for her. There was talk of having her attend the Yale School of Music, but she replied that she still had some time in high school. Nevertheless, she was determined to succeed. She was fortunate to have so much support and in early 1920s, she met voice teacher Giuseppe Boghetti, formerly known as Joe Bogash, who came from a Russian-Jewish family. At first he admitted that he wasn’t accepting any more students, but that changed when Marian sang “Deep River.” Lessons didn’t begin at once for her, but Boghetti dedicated himself to her talents. After graduation from high school, most of Anderson’s time was in her music. At graduation, one of her classmates gave an address entitled, we have music and Marian Anderson. A decade later, many others in the nation and the rest of the world would know of her. For now, she was on her way.
Anderson faced numerous challenges, especially her grandmother Mary. Somehow her friends and family provided so much support that this relative didn’t bother her. Marian managed to go to school and was blessed with great music teachers and guidance. The Great Depression of the 1930s posed another obstacle. Discrimination didn’t change as she grew older, but she did her best to not let it affect her as she traveled and performed in Europe, Asia and South America to thunderous appreciation many times. On those trips, she witnessed a difference in the way people treated her, as opposed to her homeland, even if at times there was no prejudice.
Nonetheless, the United States was her home and she returned there. With rampant racism in the North as well as the South, arranging concerts was not easy, but she still earned great reviews when she sang. In 1939, plans were made for a performance for her in the nation’s capital, either at Constitution Hall or Central High School. For reasons of race, both proprietors turned her down: the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Board of Education, respectively. This was despite repeated efforts to be at each venue. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR in protest. You might think that the two groups were despicable and un-American in their actions – deservedly so – but actually, we should thank both the board and the DAR. As a result, Marian sang outdoors at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939. The weather could have been more accommodating with nasty winds blowing, but that didn’t prevent 75,000 people from attending the five pm concert. They were young, old, black, white, rich and poor, all savoring a day of unity, understanding, integration, love and hope for what the United States could be. That day, when Anderson sang “My Country ‘Tis Of Thee”, she sang the words, of thee we sing, rather than of thee I sing.
The concert was broadcast over CBS radio and was over by six pm. It featured half a dozen works including Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” “America,” “My Soul Is Anchored in the Lord” and “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” as an encore. On the day commemorating Christian rebirth at the memorial for the Great Emancipator who freed the slaves, it was such a memorable event that a mural was created to honor that late afternoon proceeding. In a letter to Charles Houston, described as The Man Who Killed Jim Crow, Mary McLeod Bethune related what people felt on that day:
It cannot be described in words. There is no way. History may and will record it, but it will never be able to tell what happened in the hearts of thousands who stood and listened yesterday afternoon. Something happened in all of our hearts. I came away almost walking on air. We are on the right track – we must go forward. The reverence and concentration of the throngs told a story of hope for tomorrow – a story of triumph – a story of pulling together – a story of splendor and real democracy. Through the Marian Anderson protest concert we made our triumphant entry into the democratic spirit of American life.
Marian sang at the World’s Fair in New York on May 28 and followed this up with attending the premier of the movie, Young Mr. Lincoln. She performed four songs that day. In Richmond, Marian was given the Spingarn Medal, personally presented to her by Mrs. Roosevelt on July 2. Eleanor extended praise to an individual who had the courage to meet many difficulties. Your achievement far transcends any race or creed. This took place at the NAACP convention in what had been the capital of the Confederacy. Two years later, she was the recipient of the Bok Award, which brought with it $10,000. She used the money to established the Marian Anderson Scholarship Fund, which would help young singers from the age of sixteen to thirty realize their dreams.
Anderson was always generous to others and would continue doing this through benefit performances for the National Urban League, NAACP, International Committee of African Affairs and other organizations. I doubt this included the DAR. The audiences at these events were overflowing – 12,000 at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia and more than 25,000 at Lewisohn Stadium in New York – so they raised vast amounts of cash. For a few years, Anderson visited hospitals and military bases in order to comfort the wounded as well as those fighting in World War II, both black and white. In late 1942, she was invited to sing at Constitution Hall. Even though the DAR hadn’t abandoned their evil, prejudiced ways, she agree to sing because it was for the men and women in war. It wouldn’t be until 1953 that the DAR finally welcomed all, regardless of color. The next year, the Board of Education in DC followed suit.
When the mural was presented on January 6, 1943, a day before her Constitution Hall gig, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes praised the singer:
There is only one Marian Anderson, whose voice has given life to a new concept of human relationships in millions of hearts. Marian Anderson’s voice and personality have come to be a symbol – a symbol of American unity at a time when a lack of it might well prove fatal to us as a people; a symbol of the willing acceptance of the immortal truth that ‘all men are created equal’. She used the rich gift with which genius has endowed her to make an indifferent people realize that if the possession and cultivation of a voice are not related to the color of one’s skin, then the same must be equally true of other human gifts and qualities.
She performed at Carnegie Hall a few times, even as early as 1928. In the years after the Easter Sunday Lincoln Memorial event, the NAACP felt her vertical integration idea wasn’t quite enough, since it was still segregation. Eventually she agreed with them. She kept singing and recording, even though she performed less than in the 1930s and 1940s. In Bethel, Connecticut, Marian married Orpheus H. Fisher on July 17, 1943, in a small ceremony. After being refused to buy a home, the couple bought a 100-acre farm in nearby Danbury. The Marianna Farm was to be home to numerous farm animals as well as dogs and cats.
Anderson influenced many women, not only artists. The Kennedy Center showcased her life in the play My Lord, What a Morning: The Marian Anderson Story in 1999. Two years later, the 1939 documentary, Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert, was preserved by the Library of Congress. You can find her image on a U. S. postage stamp, Savings Bond and Treasury Department half-ounce gold coin. Some of her other awards include: University of Pennsylvania Glee Club, 1973; Handel Medallion, Peace Prize of the United Nations and Congressional Gold Medal, all in 1977; Honors from the Kennedy Center, 1978; George Peabody Award, 1981; Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award of New York, 1984; National Medal of Arts, 1986; Grammy Award, 1991. She has honorary degrees from Smith College, Temple and Howard Universities.
On April 8, 1993, Marian died of heart failure in Portland, Oregon, at the house of her nephew, noted conductor James DePriest. James had continued in the Anderson music tradition. His mother, Ethel, and his aunt Alice, were not only sisters of Marian, but singers as well. You can read more on Anderson in her autobiography and in the 2009 book by Raymond Arsenault, The Sound Of Freedom: Marian Anderson, The Lincoln Memorial, And The Concert That Awakened* America. A quote of hers from 1956 follows:
There is hope for America. Our country and people have every reason to be generous and good. All the changes may not come in my time; they may even be left for another world. But I have seen enough changes to believe that they will occur in this one.