Concert marks black opera singer's historic performance

In April 2009 more than 2,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday for a concert honoring the 70th anniversary of contralto Marian Anderson's historic performance there in 1939.
Because of the color of her skin, Anderson was denied the opportunity to perform at nearby Constitution Hall and at a local high school. So the opera singer performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in April 1939 to 75,000 blacks and whites standing together.

In the Sunday afternoon sunshine, African American opera star Denyce Graves performed three of the songs Anderson sang: "America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)," "O, Mio Fernando" and "Ave Maria."

Wearing one of Anderson's dresses, Graves called her predecessor "one of my greatest heroes."

She joked that when she looked over Anderson's performance list and saw "O, Mio Fernando" she thought, "My God she sang that song; that's really hard."

The Chicago Children's Choir, the women's a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock and the U.S. Marine Band also performed.

Introducing a number called "Would You Harbor Me," a member of Sweet Honey in the Rock said it was "written because this country has been a harborer to so many, but at the same time it has rejected so many."

Those words highlight Anderson's story. She grew up poor in South Philadelphia, but became famous in the 1930s, performing for royalty and in major concert halls in Europe, New York and Philadelphia.

When her manager tried to book Anderson at Constitution Hall, the largest venue in segregated Washington at the time, she was rejected by the Daughters of the American Revolution, which owned the hall and prohibited African Americans from performing there. The district's school board also turned her away from singing at a school's auditorium.

"To me, it's just very dramatic," said Josephine Pesaresi, 75, the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who attended the 1939 event. "People are younger; they don't realize what huge things have happened and how far we have come. It makes me weep, I'm so happy."

Pesaresi, who sat near the stage at Sunday's concert, said in an interview Saturday that the anniversary made her recall how her father had changed his outlook about race. Black, once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, later joined a unanimous Supreme Court in outlawing segregation in public schools in 1954, and often voted with the court's liberal wing on civil rights cases.

"He and my mother went to that concert because he so firmly believed in equality," she said.