Showing The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman

Paperback. Pub Date: 2011 Pages: 128 Publisher: Sandpiper A voice like yours. The celeated CONDUCTOR Arturo Toscanini told contralto Marian Anderson IS Heard once in a hundred years. This Insightful ACCOUNT of the great African American vocalist considers her life and musical career in the context of the history of civil rights in this country. Drawing on Anderson's own writings and other contemporary accounts. Russell Freedman shows readers a singer pursuing her art despite the social constraints that limited the careers of black performers in the 1920s and 1930s . Though not a crusader or a spokesperson by nature. Marian Anderson came to stand for all black artists-and for all Americans of color-when. with the help of such prominent figures as Eleanor Roosevelt. she gave her landmark 1939 performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. which signaled the end of segregati...