Sweet Land of Liberty...

April 1939

 

      AMERICA

My country, 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee WE sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims' pride,

From ev'ry mountainside

Let freedom ring!

 

On Easter Sunday, 1939, the great contralto Marian Anderson sang for almost an hour on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the shadow of "The Great Emancipator"...drawing a sharp contrast between what had been...what was... and what should be. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAONYTMf2pk (1:20)

 



The Daughters of the American Revolution had refused her appearance at Constitution Hall, because of the color of her skin. In response, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the D.A.R., and arranged with the help of the NAACP for Marian's outdoor performance.  Marian traveled that morning from Philadelphia with her mother and sister (because no hotel in Washington, D.C. allowed African-Americans) and performed for thousands who attended and millions who listened to it live on radio.
I feel a hint of defiance, pain, sadness, pride, and resolute strength in her rendition of “My Country, ’Tis of Thee”.  When Marian changed the line “Of thee I sing” to “Of thee we sing”  the message was clear...true freedom, equality, justice, opportunity, hope of a better future must come. The impact of her performance had a powerful and immediate impact on millions of Americans...

One person in the crowd who was significantly impacted was 10 year old Martin Luther King, Jr...later at age 15, he entered a speaking contest on the topic “The Negro and the Constitution,” and he mentioned Anderson’s performance in his speech:

“She sang as never before, with tears in her eyes...when the words of ‘America’ and ‘Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen’ rang out over that great gathering, there was a hush on the sea of uplifted faces, black and white, and a new baptism of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

That was a touching tribute...but Miss Anderson may not as yet spend the night in any good hotel in America.”
 

"Of Thee WE Sing!"

 

Two decades later, Dr. King stood on the same Lincoln Memorial steps to deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech...he surely had Marian Anderson on his mind.

As long as you keep a person down,

some part of you has to be down there to hold him down,

 so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

                                                                         -Marian Anderson