ANDERSON, MARIAN

(1902-1993), contralto. Eight years after Jackie Robinson broke the infamous color line in professional baseball, contralto Marian Anderson made her debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera House on January 7, 1955. Her successful performance of the role of Ulrica, the soothsayer, in Giuseppi Verdi's Un ballo in maschera paved the way for singers of color to appear at the Met and other major houses in the United States. According to Variety, "Miss Anderson—like Joshua, but more quietly—had fought the battle of Jericho and at last the walls had come tumbling down."

Anderson's Metropolitan performance came late in her career, after years of acclaim as a solo performer and a champion of racial equality. A native of Philadelphia, she studied and performed there prior to winning a competition that led to a performance with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1925. She sang extensively in the United States and made her London debut in 1930. After performing in Europe, she sang in Town Hall in New York City to critical acclaim in 1935.

But it was a scheduled performance at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1939 that brought Anderson's voice and her color to the attention of a broader public. Denied the right to perform in the hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Anderson, with the public support of Eleanor Roosevelt who resigned from the dar in protest, sang instead to an audience of seventy-five thousand at the Lincoln Memorial. The public outcry over the dar's action, particularly at a time when the United States was supporting the fight against Nazi doctrines of racial supremacy, brought this issue of justice to the forefront of public attention.

Anderson's Metropolitan Opera career lasted only one year, as her voice had lost some of its exceptional power by the time she appeared on the operatic stage in the United States. But she continued to perform works from the operatic repertoire along with lieder and African-American spirituals in concert.

Anderson performed at the White House for the Roosevelts in 1936 and again in 1939 for the king and queen of England. She performed for the Eisenhower family and served on the Advisory Committee on the Arts that contributed to the realization of the National Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., later named the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Anderson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from John F. Kennedy in 1963 and a Congressional Gold Medal in 1978. She established a scholarship fund to assist young artists in 1972 and was the first recipient of New York City's Human Rights Award named in honor of Eleanor Roosevelt (1984). Anderson's reputation rests not only on the quality of her voice but also on the dignity with which she asserted her right to be heard.

Marian Anderson, My Lord, What a Morning: An Autobiography (1956); Kosti Vehanen, Marian Anderson: A Portrait (1941; rev. ed., 1970).

Barbara L. Tischler

See also Music; Racial Desegregation.