Make a new year's resolution this year to get that our sleep would matches. Warehouses knew your sale save up to one thousand dollars on top settling branch plus get three hundred dollars and phone as cash with the purchase of temper bathing sites in matters. Warehouse carries nectar mattresses, so you can try it before you by in this week only you can save a hundred dollars on your neck. Your purchase, zero percent interest financing in one year price guarantee, makes mattress warehouse, think easy choice. Visit sleep happens, Doc, Hombre locations near you, man is where sleep happens that Happy Saturday today we are setting an episode from our predecessors, Farrah end of Lena back in twenty eleven. They talked about Contralto Marian Anderson Youth concert at the Lincoln Memorial a huge impression on the young Martin Luther King Jr, so enjoy welcomed stuff. You missed in history class from stuck

alone, lock into the pot cast unfair it out it and I'm going to talk of borders, and today we're gonna be talking about a famous finger but we're gonna start by talking about the famous each one of the most famous speeches in history. It took place August, nineteen sixty three for Martin Luther king. I have a dream speech. Of course that was made on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, but more than twenty years before that, a ten year old, Martin Luther king had been affected by it another Lincoln Memorial event, one that had been also covered nationally broadcast coaster coasts by NBC Radio covered in all the newspapers are really big event, and that was the concert of african american Contralto singer Marian Anderson and she had opened her before

hence by thinking America and then Donizettian, Ave, Maria and spiritual. The selection of spiritual to this utterly ecstatic crowd. They were just thrilled to see her thing, an internationally renowned singer and see her thing there on the National Mall Semi. Five thousand people were actually there, and that was the largest group to gather at the Lincoln Memorial since Limburg Appearance there in nineteen twenty seven. It was a huge event, but that concert was actually a result of earlier discrimination. The daughters of the American Revolution had refused to allow Anderson who was the bite point an internationally acclaim singer to perform at DE sees Constitution hall. So in protest First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the day are an arranged an alternate. Then you for Anderson's performance, the National mall. So with about story like that in a voice like Anderson's, the Easter nineteen, thirty nine performance prove to be

landmark moment for the early civil rights movement and one that undoubtedly affected young Martin Luther King Jr. We actually have a quote from him at age fifteen. So just a few years after this concert by Marian Anderson, Martin Luther king entered a speaking contest and he noted the performance and the inequalities that it had yet to address. In the speech he wrote: here's what he had to say. She thing as never before with tears in her eyes when the words of Amerika and nobody knows de trouble. Athene rang out over that great gathering. There were the hush on the sea of uplifted, faces black and white and a new baptism of liberty, equality and fraternity. That was the touching tribute, but Miss Anderson may not as yet spend the night in any good hotel in America, though, who was married,

understand. How did she wind up singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of this crowd of seventy five thousand people, and what did she think of her her sort of unwilling or reluctant role as a civil rights figure while we're gonna get to Bab? First we're gonna start with her childhood. She was born in Philadelphia in eighteen, ninety seven and she was the eldest of three girls, her mother trained as a school teacher in Virginia and her father worked delivering coal and ice and Anderson started singing.

Really early age. She joined the junior choir of the Union Baptist Church at age sex and she actually gotten trouble back then, because she would drown out all the other kids in her class, so in class she'd sitting closed that she could to the music room so that she could, over here the songs being taught through the wall. So really obsessed with me, you that when she finally would get to meet that class from her her other studies, she would already know all the thought she would have memorized them already. But she is also interested in piano and violin. She bought a use violin herself by saving money from scrubbing stats. Then supposedly was not very great at violin. She realised that was not her instrument, but still practised really hard at it, and this kind of an interesting time in classical music, one that we need,

to discuss a little bit before we. We can really understand how Marian came to be what she was, but it was the time that seemed a little more welcoming to african Americans curve time in classical music seemed a little more accessible than it had in the past, because just a few years before Anderson was born and tone in divorce. Jacques had announced that african Americans would be able to attend the National conservatory free of admission, and he made that decision, because he thought that spiritual and american indian music was thwarted. The way that american composition with headed that would be the major influence in the future of american music, though he thought that people with fewer privileges should be able to train up to be a part of that Future Anderson certainly singly. She would be part of that view

she had promised. She joined the people's course at church of the crucifix and at age eight and had to stand on a chair to see the conductor. So that's how young she was compared to everyone else, and it was around this time that paper started advertising her church concerts. It shows, by quote the baby contralto yeah, that was the first little contralto nickname she had, but I think it's it's funny to imagine an eight year old with a contralto in case. Anybody doesn't know that one of them or the lower registers for women thing here, to mention an eight year old, with a very power, slightly low voice, but must have been surprising You bring an impressive for sure, even then, but in nineteen o nine Marion's family sort of underwent some major trouble. Her father had a head injury

at work and after a month of illness related to this injury, he died at age, thirty, four and that left Marion's mother having to go back to work. Unfortunately, she couldn t, even though that's what she had done in Virginia, because she didn't have the proper certificate and teach in Pennsylvania, though she did laundering cleaning and filling in it off the cuff Marian to have to go to work. Herself drop out of high school and help port, the family- and she did that, mostly with menial work as well, helping out her mother with cleaning and and stuff like that, but also occasionally taking on a gig at a small concert, something something to make a little money off of her thinking, and she got help with that. Two people who had heard her thing they were about to let her slip off into a life of manual labor. So she continued to sing with the pupils chorus and Union Baptist church. Often

linen for soloists and sometimes even helping fill out the tenor section, as Sarah indicated before another another great example of her reign. She had three octaves. Actually, though, she could go from covering for the tenor section to think the piano. So she studied with a team Mary Saunders Patterson, who would often wave her lesson fees and she was supported by the Union Baptist folks who basically took up a collection for her in order to send her to school. Here they wanted to see her go somewhere. They actually thought that her voice was a gift from God in it shouldn't be wasted. So you think that such a talented young woman who was the pride of her community and had all of these supporters what would be able to get into a conservatory be able to get some professional training with money in hand, she actually applied to a local conservatory in nineteen fourteen, but had this terrible experience there, the receptionist made her way

until everyone in line behind her had been served and then, finally, when she was the last person in the room, the woman told her. We don't take coloured and dismissed her without even giving her a chance to say homer is the news. Resort destination in the Bahamas, comprises three ocean in hotels and high it s, so less in rosewood resort sits at the heart of beautiful, cable beach. It's a short flight from U S and just fifteen minutes from the airport, making it an incredibly easy family away any time of year. There's something for every one hundred and eleven our peoples in miles a beach in funding the water for kids animals with ample and seating. Complimentary water, sports kids have a black what activities at these poor kids, while the adults played the Jack Nicholas Design, governments on nine steam tennis court or

this casino and just can encounter a native marine animals sanctuary poor, hang out ah ha Moors famous working for me. There is offering forty restaurants bars lounges, ranging from casual beach eaters to share been destination, don't kids under five free it s less and rose to book we're next vacation at one of by Hamas, three iconic hotels of cartels and explore winter specials, including up to five percent savings on state visit by hallmark darker, that's be a h m. Are dotcom she's still manage to continue her training, even though she couldn't get into school like this, she went back to high school instead with the support of our church. So she had that kind of hoping that she'd be able to get a higher Pang Day job eventually to continue her singing and then the churches Marian Anderson's future

I am also helped her continue. Funding these private lessons and by the time she started touring regionally momentum around her was really really building. Finally, yet we mention p from where she was locally collecting money from her back at a concept for the National Association of Negro Musicians convention. In Chicago someone in the audience actually called for a collection for her, there too, she eventually applied and was accepted to Yale, but she still can attend due to the price. Meanwhile, though, the principle of her high school doktor Lucy Wilson kept working with Marianne and introduced her to just people Getty a well known voice teacher and he remembers their first meeting in this way quote at the end of it. Hard day when I was weary of in and singers and when a tall com girl poured out deep river in the twilight and made me cry yeah, and so he was really affected by this young woman and

voice than he cleared his schedule for her, and he was pretty frank with our two. He told her. I will need only two years with you: after You will be able to go anywhere and thing for anybody in that really prove to be true, but they started intensive training and she She did have a lot to learn. She had a great natural gift and she was really good at what she had been thinking, which was spiritual than gospel, but she needed to hone her foreign language diction to build a thing Arthur then thing arias from our prayers and to practise the style for that type of singing. You made her more formal, linear he'd be trained her formally, and so she practising all of this all the while with him she toward black colleges and churches on the EAST Coast

in nineteen, twenty three nineteen, twenty four she also started making recordings with Joseph Pastor, not cause the conductor of the Philharmonic society of Philadelphia. And, interestingly, these were the first recordings african american concert, artists recordings. Of spiritual for a major label and Marion, has oh many first, that we're not gonna, be to acknowledge all of them, but I thought that was that was an interesting recording milestone, but with all the thick, thus disappointment so had a surprisingly big effect on her, probably the worst one came in April nineteen, twenty four when she made her town Hall, New York City, debut to a nearly empty house. The reviews were really bad and, after that she had to take time off to reconsider her career before she finally decided to jump back in four smash collaboration with the Philharmonic's

idea Philadelphia. So she came back, but she was really down there and about being a bump on the road, but should she just had to think about whether this was something she really wanted to pursue, but by nineteen twenty five? She was confident enough with her ability than a strong enough singer that Bulgaria secretly entered her name into this contact with a very grand prize. Indeed, the winner would appear as a solo us with the New York Philharmonic and, as you can imagine it with competitive, there were three hundred thinkers trying to get this prize by the time Anderson appear. The judges had already heard fifty singers that day. So I get the match in those early american idol. Try how they're, probably pretty burnt out failed if they were cutting people off with the buzzer. Yes, they were cutting people off in the middle of the buzzer says she was seeing this before she went up and performed and was just dreading. She would go out their poor,

hard out thing, her beautiful thong and be cut off in the middle by the buzzer, but they listen the hallway through they called her back. They had her thing a few different times and she ended up winning the competition and performed before a crowd of seven thousand five hundred people, though after that Town Hall debacle. This was a real triumph and really gave her the confidence to move on to the next step in courier right and that next step was to had to Europe. There were fewer racial barriers there more of an opportunity to learn the languages of classical music, including french, italian and german, as well as european, vocal style, so just seem to make sense that this was. This was the next logical step for her, so in the fall of nineteen twenty seven, she left for her first trip and she spent the next several years going back and forth between in the United States and at first she mostly studied in Germany she studied which and diction their untoward in Scandinavia and the scandal

in really loved that her name was Anderson. Just get this idea name the newspapers there talked about quote Marian Fever, so too is really back there, but eventually she was torn the whole cod and Asia, as well in nineteen, thirty. Four she made her Paris debut and in the Soviet Union she featured spirit fools and songs like Ave Maria. She just change the titles to suit sensors They didn't like overtly religious songs, but those were the thing she wasn't willing to not thing spiritual, that's what she had always done, though, just things around a little bit made a few adjustments that the government there actually liked her so

they arranged for recordings to inspire soviet young people in the Soviet Union, which is is really bizarre if you think about it that the sub this young woman from Philadelphia would be a model for soviet youths, but very go through during all this touring now she also obviously came into contact with a lot of great european composers and performers and directors, and she met finnish composer genes. Billionth, for instance, than Arturo Toscanini perhaps gave her one of her. Most famous compliments, which is yours, is a voice such as one hears only once in a hundred years, and in some of the things I read about Anderson Alot of people said we're not anywhere close to that hundred years being up quite

so still holds true today holds true in some people's opinion, but by the mid nineteen thirty is. Obviously Europe was getting to not be such a hospitable, place for Anderson anymore, so she started reconsidering where her career was gonna, go and at one point she with even invited to thing in Berlin, where of course, she had performed extensively in that at nineteen twentyth, but organizers called it off when they heard that she was not quote one hundred percent area in surprise. So she just starts looking at a different options, it's time to move on in her career. Yet again, so it was time to come home for an extended stay and fortunately, her success in Europe comment that she could bring on a better manager, because, while her european tourists had been a great success for states,

manager who was Arthur. Judson had been pretty lacklustre. He didn't book much for her and he even tried to convince her to be a soprano and pursue the role of aid, which was the traditionally black sung role, but at one point she got so fed up with them that she looked at four. We then and actually stayed abroad there for two years, ditched or manager was basically hiding from him, but in Paris she had met impresario, soul, horrific, and he signed her from Judson by guaranteeing at least fifteen state side concerts with a five hundred dollar five per concert. So she was all about that. You like ok, let's do it in her homecoming concert was scheduled for December thirtieth, nineteen, thirty five at New York City town hall, the sight of her first major failure that we mentioned and to further complicate those bad men. Is that she must have already had of the place. She also had just broken her ankle. So she had this cast on

foot, but she had to do the show any way, leaning against the piano and wearing a long elegant dress, to cover the casting on one foot I mean. Can you imagine how much somebody like this too and when you're getting her voice later in the podcast somebody you clearly has to put so much energy and power into her voice. Standing on one foot tat would be pretty agonizing, but this time her performance at the town hall is a huge success. Linear at times as there was no doubt of that, she was mistress of all she surveyed, so big success in New York of she's got this good tour going on making a lot of money of actually in eighteen, thirty, eight she made a quarter of a million dollars, though, just to give you an idea of how successful she really was. It wasn't just good reviews. That's the equivalent of three points

seven million dollars. Today, though, I mean a quarter of a million sound, so concentrated. I now, though she was, she is doing very well for herself and as an artist, it seem like she was ready to to perform in the nations capital to perform in DC and her I wanted her to debut at Constitution Hall, which was really the only venue that kind could contain her many many fans. It was the biggest venue in D c, but in the

Nineteen thirty the day, our daughters of American Revolution, which owned Constitution Hall, had instituted this policy against black performers. They had originally allowed black farmers by. They thought it attracted to much more black audience. So they made just blanket policy against black farmers at Constitution Hall, though her aunt tries to get them to maybe change their rules for Anderson and said she is such a huge celebrated star, but even under pressure from him and from the and W C p and from Howard University, the dear refuses to back down from their policy and, unfortunately, the next biggest venue in town which was alive.

A white Highschool with also out of the question, because the school board refuse to allow Anderson form there so enter Eleanor Roosevelt. She was a member of the day are probably its most prominent member. She resigned publicly wrote the scathing letter to them and started working with her husband, who was the president at the time and others to Book Anderson at the National Mall. So if you, you can't perform in the biggest concert venue perform at the most high profile place in the National Kapital instead, and she did just that and the boy scouts handed out programmes to a mixed race audience that was there in attendance and she was introduced by the Secretary of the Interior, who introduced her by saying quote in this great auditory him

the sky, all of us are free. And after that introduction she started her performance with my country to be and here's what it sounded like that clip is pretty moving just listening to her, but you can also see video footage of another Anne. She just breaks into this.

Huge smile. She is clearly aware of what, in effect it had and looking back is clearly a moment of activism. It seemed like a preface to the civil rights movement that really doesn't kick off for a few more years, but at the time Anderson herself didn't really identify as an active ass. She wasn't really interested in doing that or or being that Perth. Then. In fact, she had spent most of her career, avoiding racially charge situations altogether. She would take her meals in hotel rooms to avoid uncomfortable situation that restaurant she'd sometimes have her white Accompanieth fetch her food from a restaurant that she wasn't able to go into and she'd even try to take cars instead of figure gated train, since it was

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the kind of nosebleed down about oh yeah and vertical segregation was everybody, We have the opportunity to have a good seat, but they were set. Standing by their imagine align down the metal. So if whether your black or white, you could still buy cheap theme or you goodbye, really good speed up close though she made that distinct yeah. She at least insisted on that she wanted people to be able to buy the seats they wanted. Though yeah she wasn't. She wasn't looking to be this figure of activism and she'd even had misgivings about performing the Lincoln Memorial Concert in the first place, because by this point, because of the deer controversy and Eleanor Roosevelt involvement, it was really really high profile, but part of her misgivings were voice related. They were just about the music she had only performed once before outside. So imagine, your second concert outside it in front of seventy five thousand people and broadcast National, but she did it anyway and anti certainly did

dwell on the triumph once it was over either in her autobiography. She initially wished that deed National mall concert, which is probably the most identifiable part of her life, was not in the book I think her co writer insisted that it was but to her the success she'd had in Europe where she was celebrated just as a great thinker and not a public figure. Not some sort of civil rights figure was more important to her, but the concert also marked the real pinnacle of Anderson's career. The Roosevelt's remain champions and fans of hers and interests came, the first african american performer at the White House and later in nineteen, thirty nine. She perform there in front of the king and Queen of England and then a nineteen forty three,

it was invited by none other than the day are to perform a benefit contrary. So they came around down very stimulating earth and soon she continued really high profile events to she performed at Eisenhower. Second inauguration. She performed at John F Kennedy, the inauguration and in the nineteen, fifty even with a fading voiced by this point she had travelled extensively. Should and so many concerts and she was getting older. She still made her metropolitan opera debut in verities and Bala Mascara in, I am not familiar with that opera bet supposedly, even though it so small part, it's a really really good part, its vital to the story, and it's got great music and she had done arias, obviously all through her career, but she had ever done an opera before, as though you know she was gonna, have to act and

where costume and really really, sir, to take on new roles in performing, and the part also extended into notes that were now uncomfortably high for her, so she was reluctant to to get into this in the first place. But finally, she agreed because, after all, who could withstood debut at the mat in in there, I think she's in her, If these are succeeds by this point or fiftieth fee was pretty nice here, life to venture a good lure, Twoshoes paid one thousand dollars per show which, at that point with the highest fee paid to that thing here today, Andy's to the show included Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Truman and the Dutch of Windsor and she got a five minute ovation at the end. So she probably didn't have asthma

reason to worry, as she thought, when people just wanted to see her after the show and she finally got to go back to her dressing room. She had two thousand telegrams come on. I mean, can you imagine what that would be like, then? That was actually even when some people are starting to call for her too may be consider retirement. She just had so many people who still wanted to see her that she didn't really consider it for a while. So she captain touring, even though she did flow her pace the little bit. She eventually visited every continent, except for aunt article. She will just give you a few highlights of the global tour she performed in front of the imperial court in Japan, shoes the first african American to do, though she toward Israel, because she really wanted to see places that had inspired spiritual like the river Jordan and the walls of Jericho and an interesting detail about that fence. German.

Is not a very highly considered language in Israel. At that time she performed Brahms piece which was originally written in German translated into Hebrew, and I read a little metropolitan opera piece about that and it noted that audience would not have cared if she had performed it in German, but they were just thrilled that she did take the extra staff to to learn it in Hebrew and think that after that you travel to Australia and also to New Zealand and her sixties, and she didn't integrated tour of Texas later too, and she also made recording foe. While she wasn't travelling, she was putting her voice onto tat. She did. A hundred fifty tracks were our theme victor as as a documentary and that was narrated by another great voice, Edward our Moreau. That was called the lady from Philadelphia and during all of this work she said down to you. She married an old sweetheart. She had known him for think since her her twentieth, Orpheus Fisher and together, they

a farm in Danbury Connecticut and they called it Marianna though she should semi retired. I think that she was still a pretty busy lady. Oh, yes, she was in August nineteen sixty three. She returned to the sight of her previous triumph to sing. He's got the whole world in his hands, but her voice had gone to this point so that she only got a light applause for this, so that made her start to think really seriously. At this point about retirement, and she began a farewell tour that final tourist started with a performance in October. Nineteen six: four Constitution hall and it included fifty cities. Overall in the last performance was Carnegie Hall. She lived in Connecticut until the last year of her life when she finally move to Oregon to live with her nephew, who,

conductor and she died in nineteen ninety three age. Ninety four young there some discrepancies about her age. She, if I read in two different sorts of one that you just at her edge, though that she would be allowed to thing as a child in a third wire. She moved it up a couple years of another thing. I thought those she was so disappointed that she had had to drop out of here temporarily and not graduate Highschool until she was twenty four that she's subtracted six years from her birthday, making her younger and her two sisters. So, yes, it's kind of I think she's had seventy fifth and eighteenth birthday celebrations that were definitely not her seventeenth and eighteenth birthday. There, you go out and to start a little dont, totally trust any age, easy associated with Mary.

Good to know. Well, I guess, when you're that talented, you can get away with a lot, so we have a few more fun. Random facts worry about Marian Anderson. She is on the five thousand dollar savings bond, which is pretty cool. I mean that's almost like being on a bill like a dollar bill. Now that I have, savings bond to do his pretty. How are the best people know about you, and you have actually has the highest one right now is the ten thousand bond was apparently discontinued according to the Treasury site, she's. Also on a? U S, postage stamp, and I thought this was really kind of poignant, but the de are hosted the dedication pheromones for the unveiling of her postage stamp. They are real

sorry about their treatment of marrying Anderson judging by their website. And if you want to learn more about her there's just so much out. There are so many pictures, so many recordings was really refreshing to to research. Something like this. After I don't know, some of them were medieval topic for doing she's very well documented, there's a university Pennsylvania collection with all sorts of stuff on her and a really great tribute in the new Yorker by Alex wroth, and that's actually how I first heard about her John Fuller, who hosts stuff from the beast I'd suggested per after reading the Ross Profile, any recordings that you recommend

I guess to start with, watching that whole Lincoln Memorial Concert. That's that's what I did. I think I didn't I didn't listen to at all until I was about halfway through with research, and by that point it was, it was so extra poignant. I think I mean you and I were talking about how, when we're authority going over there, yeah. I watched her right before we came in here, and I got kind of theory,

Thank you so much for joining us for this Saturday classic, since this is out of the archive, if you heard an email address or facebook url or something similar during the course of the show that may be obsolete now. So here is our current contact information, we're at history, podcast at how stuff works, dot com and then we're at missed in history all over social media. That is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, pinterest and Instagram. Thanks again for listening for minded and thousands of other topics as tough work. Stockholm this episode of stuff. You must in history. Glass is brought to you by W W, formerly wait. Watchers didn't know the most people have already given up on their resolutions. Thirteen days and the new year. I am proud to say that is not me doesn't have to be you either great thing

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