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EEW Magazine Profiles In Black History Series: Marian
Anderson
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Article By EEW Magazine Editors
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Posted February 20, 2017
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One of the finest contraltos of her time, Marian Anderson was born on February 27, 1897, in
Philadelphia Pennsylvania.
The eldest of three girls, Marian was as young as six when she became a member of the Union
Baptist Church choir, where she earned the nickname “Baby Contralto.”
When Marian was eight, her father bought her a piano. Due to the family’s inability to pay the
cost for professional lessons, Marian taught herself to play.
Her commitment to her music and her range as a singer impressed the choir so much that the
church banded together and raised enough money, around $500, to pay for the gifted singer to
receive vocal lessons from Giuseppe Boghetti, a respected voice teacher.
It all paid off.
In 1928, Marian performed at Carnegie Hall for the first time and by the late 1930s, her voice had
made her famous on both sides of the Atlantic. She was invited by President Roosevelt and his
wife Eleanor to perform at the White House, making Marian the first African American ever to
receive this honor.
Despite her success, Marian was still living in a racially divided time. In 1939, her manager tried
to set up a performance for Marian at Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall, but Anderson was
turned away due to a rule that restricted the hall for white performers only.
A furor ensued, led in part by Eleanor Roosevelt, who invited Anderson to perform instead at the
Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday.
In front of a crowd of over 75,000, Anderson offered a riveting performance that was broadcast
live for millions of radio listeners.
And in 1955, the incredible contralto singer became the first African American to perform with the
New York Metropolitan Opera. In 1961 she performed the national anthem at President John F.
Kennedy’s inauguration, and two years later, Kennedy honored the singer with the Presidential
Medal of Freedom.
After retirement, Marian lived most of her life on her farm in Connecticut, and in 1991, the music
world honored her with a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
She passed away on April 8, 1993, a racial barrier-breaker and musical sensation.
One of her most powerful quotes is, “If you have a purpose in which you believe, there’s no end
to the amount of things you can accomplish.”
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