On Jan. 7, 1955, Philadelphia-born singer Marian Anderson broke barriers when she became the first Black person to perform at the New York Metropolitan Opera as a regular company member. She played the role of Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Un Ballo in Maschera (The Masked Ball).
Despite Anderson’s talents early on in her career, her ascent to success was not without its obstacles. Most notable is the Daughters of the American Revolution’s refusal to allow Anderson to sing at Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall in 1939 due to segregation. Protests ensued and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, along with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson’s manager and the NAACP, arranged for an open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, where she sang to a crowd of 75,000 people, not including those who tuned in via radio.
The celebrated contralto served as inspiration for artists struggling through racial prejudices. Anderson used her position to participate in the 1960s civil rights movement and sang at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963…
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