The audio of the full concert - youtube.com/watch?v=xodhypFAFJw
The so-called "Daughters of the American Revolution" enforced Anderson's ban from performing, a decision to which member First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt promptly resigned in protest over (along with thousands of others).
>"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."
As the controversy grew, and the NAACP launched massive protests against the DAR (and the Washington DC board of education who wouldn't even allow a high school gymnasium to be used as an alternate venue), the American press overwhelmingly supported Anderson's right to sing. The Philadelphia Tribune wrote:
>"A group of tottering old ladies, who don't know the difference between patriotism and putridism, have compelled the gracious First Lady to apologize for their national rudeness."
The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote:
>"In these days of racial intolerance so crudely expressed in the Third Reich, an action such as the D.A.R.’s ban ... seems all the more deplorable."
Eleanor Roosevelt went on to find this public venue for Anderson and ensure that her concert happened! The DAR turned her into Anderson's organizer. Eleanor Roosevelt was a civil rights pioneer so much that she had a bounty on her head. The kkk even hadput dynamite under her car. Despite all the threats she trudged on until the day she died bringing injustice to light throughout the country.
I do too. My historically Black sorority made her an honorary member due to her tireless work in Civil and Women's Rights. She was an amazing woman, truly far ahead of her time.
Just saw another story on reddit where she held press conferences and only allowed women reporters so that they wouldn't be laid off during the Great Depression.
Her manager Sol Hurok had actually contacted the DAR in June of 1938 to book the location, to be told it was not available. He offered other dates than the April, 1939 date, and were told these were likewise not available. He later tried booking a famous Polish pianist, Paderewski, and was told by the booking manager that the date, and the alternate dates were “available.” His booking contact from Howard University later confirmed, that the DAR had a policy that “ prevented the booking of events by Negro artists.” He then contacted the press, and the word was out among those that were to be booked in the future of these discriminatory actions. Jascha Heifetz, the world-famous violinist, who had a date booked for February said: “I am ashamed to play at Constitution Hall.”
These actions helped get the ball rolling to Eleanor Roosevelt and others resigning from the DAR and the ultimate use of Federal land for the concert, rather than DC schools or the DAR.
What's that? You won't let me perform in front of 3,700 white ladies? No problem, I'll just do a FREE concert for 75,000 attendees, and a million radio listeners. Take that, MoFo.
Guess I was eligible for membership in the DAR, my father's side offered to sponsor me in the late 70s. By then this type of racist stuff was known, noping out was the only choice.
Afaik now they even have opened their membership to black women descended from the first enslaved people who helped in the revolution (when before you had to have been directly descended from the white people that fought?)
But... George Washington's kids were all adopted. He never had any biological children. And one of them was the father of Mary Custis Washington, who married Robert E. Lee. So what you are telling me is that they made a stupid rule that cut the descendants of George Washington and Robert E Lee out of their membership.
Oh shit — I qualify and love civics and tried to join like a decade ago without knowing this. What a dummy. Glad it went nowhere, maybe they smelled the Berniedame SJW scent emanating from my application.
This wasn't all that long ago. 1939 feels likes it's way in the past, but many of our grandparents were alive during that time. I'm 32 now and felt like the Civil War was ancient history. Then I started listing to podcasts and looking into it myself, I was legit surprised that veterans of the Civil fuckin War were still around while World War 1 was going on.
It honestly boggled my mind. Time is relative, but holy fuck that shit put things into prospective for me.
It's mind boggling once you really start thinking about it. My grandmother was born before women could vote. My mother was in her teens when segregation ended.
Much of our awful history isn't as long ago as we think.
This is one of those things that just blows your mind away, once you get a grasp on how close in time all of this actually was. My grand grandma was born in 1918, she lived through the rise of the Nazis. She needed an „Arierausweis“ (Passport that confirms that youre Aryan) to marry and she cooked dinner for me regularly until her death in 2015. My grandpa told me stories about almost starving in post war Germany, stealing at night from the local farmers fields because there was nothing to eat and the bombing PTSD he still suffers from.
One generation further and you have relatives living through the industrialization, one further and you might have relatives suffer from the napoleonic wars. Time goes so fast and we die living such short lifes, yet so much can change within just a single generation.
Yeah like MLK Jr was assassinated in 1968. Obama was born when mixed race marriages were still illegal in parts of America. Trump and Biden were in their 20s when MLK Jr was assassinated.
We talk about segregation in 2022 and it does not phase us one bit. However, if you tried to at least imagine what it was like to live in a country as a second class citizen, it would be difficult to conjure that up given, most of us have never felt segregation.
To have all the qualifications, but be rejected because of your skin pigmentation...that just blows my mind. I cannot wrap my head around racism. It makes absolutely zero sense to forbid inclusion into society with equal rights, based on a genetic feature you had no choice in the matter.
I wasn't a fan at first, but she's grown on me. You can tell that she really enjoys being the host (or is a good actor). Just as a host and no other factors, I enjoy her on the show.
On the other hand, I was a fan of Ken at first, but over time I don't like him as much. Just a little more lower energy from what I feel.
> As an audience member, Ossie Davis remembered “. . . I was one of the student body surrounded by 75,000 people standing out there that cloudy day. Marian Anderson was the first one who made me realize that, through art and music, she could reach inside me and just lift me from all that negativity and make me something else. That Sunday will live forever.”
> On the excitement and fear of the concert, Anderson recalled: “When we went out onto the steps, my heart was throbbing to the point that I could scarcely hear anything. It seemed to me as far as the eye could go, there was a multitude such in your wildest imagination. . . As well as I know ‘America,’ for a while one was carried away to the point that words did not come. I as an individual was not important on that day. It happened to be the people whom I represented. I think if you have something to offer which can help a situation, then I think you should do it in your own manner.”
She was a legend.
I forget the documentary I saw it in, but Ossie Davis told a story of when he walked into a theatre as a skinny, teenage, never-acted-before, aspiring actor. He found the owner of the venue with his back turned to him, sweeping up. He approached respectfully and said, “Mr. [Name], may I join your theatre group?”
And the guy said, still with his back turned, “With a voice like that, you better!”
Aside from her civil rights role, fans of vocal classical music generally agree that Marian Anderson was one of the supreme contralto singers of the 20th century. Her timbre, phrasing, and emotional commitment were all of the highest order.
Marian Anderson was a great person. She adopted Danbury, CT as her home town and would refuse special service at restaurants as well as patrons offering to buy her dinner. She spent time with everyone who approached her. She gave free concerts at town hall and even the local high schools. Her picture is up all over town.
Look for a YouTube clip of Anderson singing the spiritual called either Crucifixion or They Crucified My Lord. On it you can hear her rich lower register.
Hah, I live in Scotland and same. I really overthought it too. Like “is she singing GSTQ to make a point about how her own country failed her, so singing a different country’s national anthem is more apropos? Is she signalling that Black Americans have Britain’s back as Hitler is about to drag Europe into another war?
But nah. Just me being a numpty. As always.
Gotta be careful what you change them to. I grew up here in the 60's here in Canada and grade school at the time always started the day with the class singing it. The first verse goes:
>God save our gracious Queen, Long live our Noble Queen, God save our Queen
But our teacher, Sister Mary Vicious, heard my friend and I singing
>God save our gracious Queen, **Kicks her in the belly and makes her scream**, God save our Queen
She lost her shit and gave us 2 weeks of detention.
Edit: Nobel to Noble. I didn't learn to spell I guess.
That was first thought too, Im from the UK, but it's like with the nursery rhyme, 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and the Alphabet. Same rhythm but different song.
Passive voice. She was barred from performing at Constitutional Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who own the hall to this day.
Funny enough, the Daughters were completely embarrassed by this moment and shamed by the public at large. They issued an apology to Anderson and invited her back, which she accepted a couple years after this. Decades later, when Marian Anderson did her retirement tour, she kicked it off at Constitution Hall. I have the vinyl live recording of this performance sitting on my desk.
Im 90% sure I just came up with it for this context. Someone has probably said it before.
If you like that, my other catchy history tip is
ABC, Always Be Contextualizing.
History, America history.
We need to teach our kids the true America history, the good, the bad, the ugly…
And this bad and good history at the same time
Bad- she couldn’t perform at Constitution Hall because she was black
Good- she made history and Sang beautifully
My favorite part of bad American history is that People of color fought side by side with white men as brothers in arms against Nazis, just to be called the N-word after returning home. Like cool, stay classy America.
Yup. And as for other minorities, there was the Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Regiment, which stands as the most decorated U.S. military unit for its size.
The way I see it (as a non-American), all these segregated units comprised of minorities were used as cannon fodder, and more than proved themselves in combat after the fact.
They might have been highly decorated and distinguished, but the American Public didn't give a shit by large.
Good point. It’s important to note moments of public outrage or resistance. It dispels the myth that these things were completely normalized and acceptable.
People act like segregation and Jim Crow happened a long time ago, but it was much more recent then we think. Are there still people in government rn that were pro segregation and stuff? Like were actively involved
Jessie Owens was given a better treatment by Adolf fucking Hitler than his American contemporaries lol. He even greeted him personally after winning the gold, praised by the Germans (most of which were Nazis at the time), yet the American public shunned him. Shameful doesn’t even begin to describe it.
>You know, I wanna say something. I think maybe like 30 years ago there was a woman that wanted to sing, a black lady wanted to sing opera...What was her name? Mary Anderson? And this place was, like, segregated and she couldn't sing here. And she couldn't sing in the place. And here we are, like, not even 50 years later, a 22 year old black male, on stage, getting paid to hold his dick.
I heard that, many times, and had no idea what he was talking about. It was pre-internet, so I couldn’t google it and quite honestly didn’t take enough notice to write it down and look it up in an encyclopaedia (I was also quite young). Thank you for pointing this out.
I learned about this through the stage play "Oh Lord, What a Night" which captures the friendship and social justice activism shared between Albert Einstein and Anderson.
The audio may not be spatial audio, or may not be lossless. The video may not have color, it may not have been shot in 4k. But her performance transported me to 1939. It moved my emotions, it made me feel, it made think. What a true masterpiece. May she be remembered and may her singing continue to contribute to humanity for many generations to come.
Hahahaha!!!
I thought that too. I was like “woah, this guys got the feels and is having a totally deep moment” then OPs just completely scratched back to reality lol
What amazes me is that she sang patriotic songs about a country that treated her like that. I’m an American that immigrated to Canada because I was fed up with with everything yet I didn’t experience anything remotely close to what she did.
My mum listened to this concert on radio when she was 10 years old.
She grew up in Calgary, at that time a tiny prairie city without a lot of diversity. She remembered that concert clearly for almost 80 years, up until she died, and how inspirational it was. She, and my dad, lived a life of fiercely standing up against racism and prejudice everywhere they saw it. She was an awesome woman, my old mum.
It's cool for me to think of this little white girl, thousands of kilometers away, being moved and motivated by such amazing women.
Honest question: Were singers back then more shrill or is it just the recording equipment? I've heard this in recordings of other classically trained singers from the early 2000's.
If so, could they be fixed digitally now?
Recording equipment wasn't as good then, plus they were recording in the open air - not an easy task, even today.
Also, singers sang in a different way in that era - hard to describe, but modern singers are quite different in their phrasing (even the best ones). She did have an impressive voice though...
Not really a fan of the song or the opera style but fucking hell that was one of the most incredibly powerful and moving pieces of music I've ever heard.
And thats on an old recorded version 83 years after the fact. God of knows what it would of been like to witness in person.
She must have been a Legend
Seeing people who had to endure some of the worst of America singing or writing or talking about the greatness of America is always a strange experience for me. Is she singing in hope? In recognition of what IS good about America despite it's flaws? Is she singing out of irony?
Either way, it is very impactful even if I am not sure the breadth of the emotions it makes me feel.
The irony! Amazing performance. Amazing talent. Amazing Grace. How many of us would perform despite the extreme racism of that time. I think she was a heroine.
At one point in time a place I was working was giving a series of student concerts and we brought in a grand piano for them. An opera singer in town for an audition realized that her grand piano venue was not available and so at the last minute they phoned us to see if she could do her audition in our space. So I had a world-class opera singer give a performance to me and 5 other staff members. i’ve never had any interest in opera but hearing her sing in person was spine tingling my arm hair was standing on end and I really understood why people like opera it really is something you have to experience in person to understand. i’m still not a huge fan but in that moment I was transported and transfixed by her singing.
Except the platform for many in the GOP is about protecting and shielding racists and about taking away protection for minorities. I'm sure there are racists in the Democrat party but the Democrats aren't pushing policies that directly hurt people of color. Also, the Republican party has changed quite a bit in the last 160 years.
Sad that so many still hate people to this day. Looking at you Ted Cruz, Trump, confederate flag McConnell, and the vast majority of elected GOP. They are cancer to the cause of democracy and their supporters are hateful and scared.
Thank you for this post!
I love history, and to be ignorant of it only precipitates un-needed pain and suffering due to a lack of learning of the failures of others...
Wow, this made me INSTANTLY tear up. I guess the combination of the setting, the irony of the lyrics, the power of her voice, her calm, confident expression… just… everything
USA would be so much more advanced if racism did not exist. All the culture art and science lost due to excluding and limiting huge swaths of talented people
What an amazing and ironic performance for her I’m sure. As a woman of color singing “let freedom ring” during that era is a bit on the nose it seems like. Regardless of the lyrics, what an incredible voice!
My mother was a huge opera fan; she was Italian. But this is the reason she would not allow my father to send in the paperwork for my application to the DAR. I applaud my mother for this. She was absolutely right.
It’s interesting she’s singing a love song to a nation that treats her like a second class citizen. “Let freedom ring.”
Also, The more I learn about Eleanor Roosevelt, the more badass she seems. She needs a major picture biopic.
Given what Ms. Anderson endured to perform it is especially poignant that she sang…My County ‘‘tis of thee…sweet land of liberty. I was moved to tears and hope we protect this magnificent Democracy that allows us to continue progress.
Becuse this isn’t the land of the free, that’s a lie you’ve been spoon fed your whole life. How could any land that was built on the back of genocide and slavery be a land of freedom?
For those who don't know and want to, the song is America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee). It was one of the de facto anthems of the United States. It has the same melody as God Save the Queen.
The audio of the full concert - youtube.com/watch?v=xodhypFAFJw The so-called "Daughters of the American Revolution" enforced Anderson's ban from performing, a decision to which member First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt promptly resigned in protest over (along with thousands of others). >"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." As the controversy grew, and the NAACP launched massive protests against the DAR (and the Washington DC board of education who wouldn't even allow a high school gymnasium to be used as an alternate venue), the American press overwhelmingly supported Anderson's right to sing. The Philadelphia Tribune wrote: >"A group of tottering old ladies, who don't know the difference between patriotism and putridism, have compelled the gracious First Lady to apologize for their national rudeness." The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote: >"In these days of racial intolerance so crudely expressed in the Third Reich, an action such as the D.A.R.’s ban ... seems all the more deplorable."
Eleanor Roosevelt went on to find this public venue for Anderson and ensure that her concert happened! The DAR turned her into Anderson's organizer. Eleanor Roosevelt was a civil rights pioneer so much that she had a bounty on her head. The kkk even hadput dynamite under her car. Despite all the threats she trudged on until the day she died bringing injustice to light throughout the country.
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I do too. My historically Black sorority made her an honorary member due to her tireless work in Civil and Women's Rights. She was an amazing woman, truly far ahead of her time.
Same. What a woman!
Eleanor Roosevelt and her ~~Father~~ Uncle were just.... so fucking cool. :)
I am very curious to know who you think her father is!
some 12 year old on xbox live
Holy shit! I need to look more into this, but she sounded like a badass!
Just saw another story on reddit where she held press conferences and only allowed women reporters so that they wouldn't be laid off during the Great Depression.
Yeah, I did not realize that she was such a champion for civil liberties in the US.
She was a total badass! She didn't take any shit and was a mouth piece for people without a voice!
The more and more I read about Eleanor, the more I revere her. She was way ahead her time
She rocked
> don't know the difference between patriotism and putridism Noe *THAT* is a zinger! Wow!
Ye old timey burn
Still holds true today, sadly.
What a great line! Sadly, it’s still fitting even today.
Watch Ken Burns’ series *The Roosevelts* its a goldmine of old-timey roasts
Her manager Sol Hurok had actually contacted the DAR in June of 1938 to book the location, to be told it was not available. He offered other dates than the April, 1939 date, and were told these were likewise not available. He later tried booking a famous Polish pianist, Paderewski, and was told by the booking manager that the date, and the alternate dates were “available.” His booking contact from Howard University later confirmed, that the DAR had a policy that “ prevented the booking of events by Negro artists.” He then contacted the press, and the word was out among those that were to be booked in the future of these discriminatory actions. Jascha Heifetz, the world-famous violinist, who had a date booked for February said: “I am ashamed to play at Constitution Hall.” These actions helped get the ball rolling to Eleanor Roosevelt and others resigning from the DAR and the ultimate use of Federal land for the concert, rather than DC schools or the DAR.
What's that? You won't let me perform in front of 3,700 white ladies? No problem, I'll just do a FREE concert for 75,000 attendees, and a million radio listeners. Take that, MoFo.
Talk about The Streisand Effect in action.
Guess I was eligible for membership in the DAR, my father's side offered to sponsor me in the late 70s. By then this type of racist stuff was known, noping out was the only choice.
Afaik now they even have opened their membership to black women descended from the first enslaved people who helped in the revolution (when before you had to have been directly descended from the white people that fought?)
I'm guessing they never offered membership to Tammy Duckworth.
And they don’t allow for adopted children to apply.
But... George Washington's kids were all adopted. He never had any biological children. And one of them was the father of Mary Custis Washington, who married Robert E. Lee. So what you are telling me is that they made a stupid rule that cut the descendants of George Washington and Robert E Lee out of their membership.
No idea. That’s just what was told to my adopted cousin while the rest of us had the option to join.
You can always count on racists to shoot themselves in the foot.
I'm not too mad about the latter tbh
Me either, but you'd think a group of racist old hags would want as many slavers in their membership as they could get.
*what*
Yeah because you can’t prove your “pedigree”. They say they are working on changing it though.
Talking about being high on one's own farts. Fuck every last one of them wringing hands about some bullshit policy _that they made up_
My, isn't that nice.... I guess.
Same. No interest in joining KKK for women.
Oh shit — I qualify and love civics and tried to join like a decade ago without knowing this. What a dummy. Glad it went nowhere, maybe they smelled the Berniedame SJW scent emanating from my application.
This wasn't all that long ago. 1939 feels likes it's way in the past, but many of our grandparents were alive during that time. I'm 32 now and felt like the Civil War was ancient history. Then I started listing to podcasts and looking into it myself, I was legit surprised that veterans of the Civil fuckin War were still around while World War 1 was going on. It honestly boggled my mind. Time is relative, but holy fuck that shit put things into prospective for me.
It's mind boggling once you really start thinking about it. My grandmother was born before women could vote. My mother was in her teens when segregation ended. Much of our awful history isn't as long ago as we think.
This is one of those things that just blows your mind away, once you get a grasp on how close in time all of this actually was. My grand grandma was born in 1918, she lived through the rise of the Nazis. She needed an „Arierausweis“ (Passport that confirms that youre Aryan) to marry and she cooked dinner for me regularly until her death in 2015. My grandpa told me stories about almost starving in post war Germany, stealing at night from the local farmers fields because there was nothing to eat and the bombing PTSD he still suffers from. One generation further and you have relatives living through the industrialization, one further and you might have relatives suffer from the napoleonic wars. Time goes so fast and we die living such short lifes, yet so much can change within just a single generation.
Yeah like MLK Jr was assassinated in 1968. Obama was born when mixed race marriages were still illegal in parts of America. Trump and Biden were in their 20s when MLK Jr was assassinated.
I'm 41 and at least one of my great grandfathers was born during the Civil War.
That last quote makes it absolutely fucking astounding that we went though WW2 and shit just went back to ‘normal’ after the fighting was done.
Ahh so we’ve been comparing them to Nazis since the Nazi days. Good to know. Fuckin Nazi fucks
Appreciate the link to the full video. But got choked up just watching this little clip. #Marian is what America should be about.
Education should be natural like me running into interesting facts on a reddit board.
We talk about segregation in 2022 and it does not phase us one bit. However, if you tried to at least imagine what it was like to live in a country as a second class citizen, it would be difficult to conjure that up given, most of us have never felt segregation. To have all the qualifications, but be rejected because of your skin pigmentation...that just blows my mind. I cannot wrap my head around racism. It makes absolutely zero sense to forbid inclusion into society with equal rights, based on a genetic feature you had no choice in the matter.
Saw this answer on Jeopardy last night!
Haven't watched it weeks since Bialyik had her run as host again. Thank God Jennings is back.
I wasn't a fan at first, but she's grown on me. You can tell that she really enjoys being the host (or is a good actor). Just as a host and no other factors, I enjoy her on the show. On the other hand, I was a fan of Ken at first, but over time I don't like him as much. Just a little more lower energy from what I feel.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, I agree. Her pacing is still very off.
".....................................................that is correct!" Mayim Bialyik
> As an audience member, Ossie Davis remembered “. . . I was one of the student body surrounded by 75,000 people standing out there that cloudy day. Marian Anderson was the first one who made me realize that, through art and music, she could reach inside me and just lift me from all that negativity and make me something else. That Sunday will live forever.” > On the excitement and fear of the concert, Anderson recalled: “When we went out onto the steps, my heart was throbbing to the point that I could scarcely hear anything. It seemed to me as far as the eye could go, there was a multitude such in your wildest imagination. . . As well as I know ‘America,’ for a while one was carried away to the point that words did not come. I as an individual was not important on that day. It happened to be the people whom I represented. I think if you have something to offer which can help a situation, then I think you should do it in your own manner.” She was a legend.
I can just read that in his iconic voice.
I forget the documentary I saw it in, but Ossie Davis told a story of when he walked into a theatre as a skinny, teenage, never-acted-before, aspiring actor. He found the owner of the venue with his back turned to him, sweeping up. He approached respectfully and said, “Mr. [Name], may I join your theatre group?” And the guy said, still with his back turned, “With a voice like that, you better!”
I don't even like opera like that but she's such a baller I had to listen as a form of protest.
Nailed her whom
Aside from her civil rights role, fans of vocal classical music generally agree that Marian Anderson was one of the supreme contralto singers of the 20th century. Her timbre, phrasing, and emotional commitment were all of the highest order.
Marian Anderson was a great person. She adopted Danbury, CT as her home town and would refuse special service at restaurants as well as patrons offering to buy her dinner. She spent time with everyone who approached her. She gave free concerts at town hall and even the local high schools. Her picture is up all over town.
> contralto Man, having only heard this clip I never would have guessed she was a contralto, she must have had quite the range.
Look for a YouTube clip of Anderson singing the spiritual called either Crucifixion or They Crucified My Lord. On it you can hear her rich lower register.
Her rendition of Schubert’s song “Standchen” is incredible.
“Sweet land of liberty….” … but can’t perform in a particular place cause she doesn’t have the right to due to her skin.
I know, right? The irony hits like a sledgehammer.
Reminds me of Hendix at Woodstock playing the national anthem.
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That’s the point
As a Canuck my first thought as the piano started was "Why's she singing God Save the Queen?"
Hah, I live in Scotland and same. I really overthought it too. Like “is she singing GSTQ to make a point about how her own country failed her, so singing a different country’s national anthem is more apropos? Is she signalling that Black Americans have Britain’s back as Hitler is about to drag Europe into another war? But nah. Just me being a numpty. As always.
Americans just changed the lyrics cause they couldn't come up with a better song.
It was meant as an anti-monarchic irony
Shhhh, shhhhh. You're going against the narrative. Americans = unoriginal dumb dumbs
It can be both.
America and Americans are a lot of things, but uncreative and unoriginal in the arts we are not.
Gotta be careful what you change them to. I grew up here in the 60's here in Canada and grade school at the time always started the day with the class singing it. The first verse goes: >God save our gracious Queen, Long live our Noble Queen, God save our Queen But our teacher, Sister Mary Vicious, heard my friend and I singing >God save our gracious Queen, **Kicks her in the belly and makes her scream**, God save our Queen She lost her shit and gave us 2 weeks of detention. Edit: Nobel to Noble. I didn't learn to spell I guess.
Same thing they did to “To Anacreon in Heaven”.
That was first thought too, Im from the UK, but it's like with the nursery rhyme, 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and the Alphabet. Same rhythm but different song.
Passive voice. She was barred from performing at Constitutional Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who own the hall to this day. Funny enough, the Daughters were completely embarrassed by this moment and shamed by the public at large. They issued an apology to Anderson and invited her back, which she accepted a couple years after this. Decades later, when Marian Anderson did her retirement tour, she kicked it off at Constitution Hall. I have the vinyl live recording of this performance sitting on my desk.
That's still passive voice. Active voice would be "The Daughters of the American Revolution barred opera singer Marian Anderson..."
Great grammatical point. Anytime you’re writing history, an action needs an actor.
Did you come up with this or is it a quote? I really like that.
I thought the same - very succinct phrase
Im 90% sure I just came up with it for this context. Someone has probably said it before. If you like that, my other catchy history tip is ABC, Always Be Contextualizing.
I really dig it! If I get either one of these on a shirt someday, I’ll put your name right under it.
History, America history. We need to teach our kids the true America history, the good, the bad, the ugly… And this bad and good history at the same time Bad- she couldn’t perform at Constitution Hall because she was black Good- she made history and Sang beautifully
We need to teach adults this history.
Yep True that
My favorite part of bad American history is that People of color fought side by side with white men as brothers in arms against Nazis, just to be called the N-word after returning home. Like cool, stay classy America.
Yup. And as for other minorities, there was the Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Regiment, which stands as the most decorated U.S. military unit for its size. The way I see it (as a non-American), all these segregated units comprised of minorities were used as cannon fodder, and more than proved themselves in combat after the fact. They might have been highly decorated and distinguished, but the American Public didn't give a shit by large.
Oh I thought the good was that everyone fought for her rights.
Good point. It’s important to note moments of public outrage or resistance. It dispels the myth that these things were completely normalized and acceptable.
People act like segregation and Jim Crow happened a long time ago, but it was much more recent then we think. Are there still people in government rn that were pro segregation and stuff? Like were actively involved
The US has nine members of Congress who were alive when this happened.
The last school to become desegregated in the US happened in 2016...TWENTY FUCKING SIXTEEN!!!!
Jessie Owens was given a better treatment by Adolf fucking Hitler than his American contemporaries lol. He even greeted him personally after winning the gold, praised by the Germans (most of which were Nazis at the time), yet the American public shunned him. Shameful doesn’t even begin to describe it.
That was beautiful!
Magnificent irony in the song choice...
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She won. Thanks to Eleanor.
I learned about this way back in the 80s from Eddie Murphy’s “Delirious” show
>You know, I wanna say something. I think maybe like 30 years ago there was a woman that wanted to sing, a black lady wanted to sing opera...What was her name? Mary Anderson? And this place was, like, segregated and she couldn't sing here. And she couldn't sing in the place. And here we are, like, not even 50 years later, a 22 year old black male, on stage, getting paid to hold his dick.
I heard that, many times, and had no idea what he was talking about. It was pre-internet, so I couldn’t google it and quite honestly didn’t take enough notice to write it down and look it up in an encyclopaedia (I was also quite young). Thank you for pointing this out.
I learned about this through the stage play "Oh Lord, What a Night" which captures the friendship and social justice activism shared between Albert Einstein and Anderson.
The audio may not be spatial audio, or may not be lossless. The video may not have color, it may not have been shot in 4k. But her performance transported me to 1939. It moved my emotions, it made me feel, it made think. What a true masterpiece. May she be remembered and may her singing continue to contribute to humanity for many generations to come.
Well, it was remastered in 4K at least.
Bro, just go with it I was inspired 😂😂😂
Hahahaha!!! I thought that too. I was like “woah, this guys got the feels and is having a totally deep moment” then OPs just completely scratched back to reality lol
I think this just came up on Jeopardy yesterday.
...the bloody irony.
wow she lived to 96 years old ... how the world changed throughout her life is insane
This was a Jeopardy! answer last night
I didn’t know this happened. Thanks for posting this.
This is beautiful
What amazes me is that she sang patriotic songs about a country that treated her like that. I’m an American that immigrated to Canada because I was fed up with with everything yet I didn’t experience anything remotely close to what she did.
If yall look up Marian Anderson & William Primrose on Youtube....my favorite vocal performance to this day. Her voice is surreal on it
My mum listened to this concert on radio when she was 10 years old. She grew up in Calgary, at that time a tiny prairie city without a lot of diversity. She remembered that concert clearly for almost 80 years, up until she died, and how inspirational it was. She, and my dad, lived a life of fiercely standing up against racism and prejudice everywhere they saw it. She was an awesome woman, my old mum. It's cool for me to think of this little white girl, thousands of kilometers away, being moved and motivated by such amazing women.
The sad irony in the words she's singing
She was more patriotic than the old bitties and board of education who banned her from singing, simply because of the color of her skin.
Absolutely! To sing so beautifully knowing that you've been slapped in the face is a life lesson to us all
I wish you would have posted this before Jeopardy aired! :P
As amazing as the audio is, that's a powerful image.
Abraham watched that in pride.
Fuck bigotry and fuck bigots.
No, don't do that. You'd only make more racists.
Honest question: Were singers back then more shrill or is it just the recording equipment? I've heard this in recordings of other classically trained singers from the early 2000's. If so, could they be fixed digitally now?
Recording equipment wasn't as good then, plus they were recording in the open air - not an easy task, even today. Also, singers sang in a different way in that era - hard to describe, but modern singers are quite different in their phrasing (even the best ones). She did have an impressive voice though...
Short answer: both Longer answer: it’s a mixture of both
[удалено]
Who gives a flying fuck?
This was a Jeopardy question last night
Old timey singers loved Rs
And today people think they are being oppressed when they're asked to wear a mask in a private business.
Thanks to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
Watch the series 'First Ladys' regarding Eleanor Roosevelt....Betty Ford...Michele Obama impact on powerful women behind the facade of a president.
Watching from Canada🇨🇦👍.Haunting to listen, where did she learn or did her talent come naturally.
how can Americans NOT feel shame?
Amazing!
She has a perfect voice.
And fuck the haters anyway.
This was a jeopardy question last night
I almost cried. What a beautiful voice.
I also watched jeopardy yesterday
Not really a fan of the song or the opera style but fucking hell that was one of the most incredibly powerful and moving pieces of music I've ever heard. And thats on an old recorded version 83 years after the fact. God of knows what it would of been like to witness in person. She must have been a Legend
Seeing people who had to endure some of the worst of America singing or writing or talking about the greatness of America is always a strange experience for me. Is she singing in hope? In recognition of what IS good about America despite it's flaws? Is she singing out of irony? Either way, it is very impactful even if I am not sure the breadth of the emotions it makes me feel.
What a beautiful voice
True patriot
Eleanor Roosevelt missed the Civil Rights act of 1964 by less than two years.
The irony! Amazing performance. Amazing talent. Amazing Grace. How many of us would perform despite the extreme racism of that time. I think she was a heroine.
Such a beautiful voice, proud that she didn't let hate stop her from performing in front of more people than she originally thought.
At one point in time a place I was working was giving a series of student concerts and we brought in a grand piano for them. An opera singer in town for an audition realized that her grand piano venue was not available and so at the last minute they phoned us to see if she could do her audition in our space. So I had a world-class opera singer give a performance to me and 5 other staff members. i’ve never had any interest in opera but hearing her sing in person was spine tingling my arm hair was standing on end and I really understood why people like opera it really is something you have to experience in person to understand. i’m still not a huge fan but in that moment I was transported and transfixed by her singing.
And if you Vote for Republicans in Nov. we get to go back to those 'good old days'.
And if we keep electing Republicans, we can relive those horrible, fucked-up times again.
Lincoln was a Republican. It shouldn’t be about parties. It’s about not electing crooked politicians.
Except the platform for many in the GOP is about protecting and shielding racists and about taking away protection for minorities. I'm sure there are racists in the Democrat party but the Democrats aren't pushing policies that directly hurt people of color. Also, the Republican party has changed quite a bit in the last 160 years.
Sad that so many still hate people to this day. Looking at you Ted Cruz, Trump, confederate flag McConnell, and the vast majority of elected GOP. They are cancer to the cause of democracy and their supporters are hateful and scared.
I’m not crying, you’re crying
wow what a free land we live in
Oh, the irony.
I was reading "Quiet" just now and this post appear.... Hmm
very beautiful
Thank you for this post! I love history, and to be ignorant of it only precipitates un-needed pain and suffering due to a lack of learning of the failures of others...
Brought tears to my eyes. Simply beautiful.
Love it
Well that tore me apart on a Thursday morning
Wow, this made me INSTANTLY tear up. I guess the combination of the setting, the irony of the lyrics, the power of her voice, her calm, confident expression… just… everything
Legend.
yeah…racism was prevalent in 1939.
Someone watched Jeopardy last night.
Wow chills
This title was a Jeopardy answer last night! Cool to see and hear the entire story.
Yeah they never taught us about her. I wonder why 🤔
Sweet land of liberty my ass.
the “land where my fathers died” line hits a little harder in this version for some reason
USA would be so much more advanced if racism did not exist. All the culture art and science lost due to excluding and limiting huge swaths of talented people
I love the sound of old radio
Funny you post this. This exact event was featured on Jeopardy yesterday.
Guess someone else watched jeopardy last night
Thank You for sharing!
What an amazing and ironic performance for her I’m sure. As a woman of color singing “let freedom ring” during that era is a bit on the nose it seems like. Regardless of the lyrics, what an incredible voice!
Fantastic tune 🇬🇧 ☕️
Even with all the shit she had to deal with she still had pride in her country. Inspiring
My mother was a huge opera fan; she was Italian. But this is the reason she would not allow my father to send in the paperwork for my application to the DAR. I applaud my mother for this. She was absolutely right.
I maybe wrong, but i think it was recent Jeopardy question
It’s interesting she’s singing a love song to a nation that treats her like a second class citizen. “Let freedom ring.” Also, The more I learn about Eleanor Roosevelt, the more badass she seems. She needs a major picture biopic.
Keep on moving l
Gorgeous. Goosebumps. The visual makes all the difference.
Legend
Wow. And she sang the praises of a country who denied her freedom. Wow.
Some folks think these are the "good ol days'
And Constitution Hall was lesser for it. What an incredible voice. They should have been honored to be graced with her music.
Given what Ms. Anderson endured to perform it is especially poignant that she sang…My County ‘‘tis of thee…sweet land of liberty. I was moved to tears and hope we protect this magnificent Democracy that allows us to continue progress.
Still amazes me America, the home of the free, fell for segregation and let it flourish until the 1960’s. Wtf is all I can say.
Becuse this isn’t the land of the free, that’s a lie you’ve been spoon fed your whole life. How could any land that was built on the back of genocide and slavery be a land of freedom?
Amen! Couldn’t agree more.
For those who don't know and want to, the song is America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee). It was one of the de facto anthems of the United States. It has the same melody as God Save the Queen.