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Deemed one of the finest contraltos of her time, Marian Anderson became the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1955.
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Marian Anderson was born on February 27, 1897, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of John Berkley Anderson and the former Annie Delilah Rucker. Her father sold ice and coal at the Reading Terminal in downtown Philadelphia. Prior to her marriage, Anderson's mother had briefly attended the Virginia Seminary and College in Lynchburg and had worked as a schoolteacher in Virginia. As she did not obtain a degree, Annie Anderson was unable to teach in Philadelphia under a law that was applied only to black teachers and not white ones. She therefore earned an income caring for small children.
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Marian Anderson grew up in a time of civil unrest in our country. Because of the color of her skin, she was denied admittance to many locations, and even denied the opportunity to sing in public places!
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By the age of 6, Marian was singing in the choir at Union Baptist Church in Philadelphia. As a member of the choir, she got to perform solos and duets, often with her aunt Mary. Marian was also taken by her aunt to concerts at local churches, the YMCA, benefit concerts, and other community music events throughout the city. Anderson credited her aunt's influence as the reason she pursued her singing career. Beginning as young as six, her aunt arranged for Marian to sing for local functions where she was often paid 25 or 50 cents for singing a few songs.
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One of our Character words for the last 9 weeks was Determination. Marian Anderson had great determination. She was determined to make something of herself even from her humble beginnings. She overcame many challenges, the biggest of all being a black woman during a time of great discrimination in our nation. When Anderson was 12, her father was accidentally struck on the head while at work at the Reading Terminal, just a few weeks before Christmas of 1909. He died of heart failure a month later at age 34. Marian and her family moved into the home of her father's parents, Grandpa Benjamin and Grandma Isabella Anderson.Her grandfather had been born a slave and had experienced emancipation in the 1860s. He was the first of the Anderson family to settle in South Philadelphia, and when Anderson moved into his home the two became very close.
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Yesterday we learned that Marian Anderson didn’t have enough money to pay for singing lessons or to attend the high school in her area (back in those days, public education was not free and people had to pay to rent their books). Eventually the directors of the People's Chorus and the pastor of her church, raised the money she needed to get singing lessons and to attend South Philadelphia High School, from which she graduated in 1921.
After high school, Anderson applied to an all-white music school, the Philadelphia Music Academy (now University of the Arts), but was turned away because she was black. The woman working the admissions counter replied, "We don't take colored" when she tried to apply. Undaunted, Anderson pursued studies privately in her native city through the continued support of the Philadelphia black community. |
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In 1925 Anderson got her first big break when she won first prize in a singing competition sponsored by the New York Philharmonic. As the winner she got to perform in concert with the orchestra on August 26, 1925, a performance that scored immediate success with both the audience and music critics.
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By the late 1930s, Anderson's voice had made her famous on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States she was invited by President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor to perform at the White House, the first African American ever to receive this honor.
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In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in their Constitution Hall. At the time, Washington, D.C., was a segregated city and black patrons were upset that they had to sit at the back of Constitution Hall. Constitution Hall also did not have the segregated public bathrooms required by DC law at the time for such events. The District of Columbia Board of Education also declined a request to use the auditorium of a white public high school.
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As a result of the refusal, thousands of DAR members, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned from the organization. In her letter to the DAR, she wrote, "I am in complete disagreement with the attitude taken in refusing Constitution Hall to a great artist ... You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way and it seems to me that your organization has failed.
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