Voice of Freedom is a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in February 2021.
It is an episode of the long-running program American Experience (season 33, episode 02).
The topic is the life and career of the famous African-American opera singer Marian Anderson (1897-1993).
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writer and director: Rob Rapley
** Narrator: Renee Elise Goldsberry
** Excerpts from Marian Anderson’s autobiography are read by Brenda Pressley
** Run time: 100 minutes
Several persons are interviewed in this film. Here are the names (listed in alphabetical order):
** Allida Black - historian
** Angela Brown – opera singer
** Lucy Caplan – cultural historian – Harvard University
** Alisha Lola Jones – musicologist
** Adriane Lentz-Smith – historian – Duke University
** Carol Oja – musicologist – Harvard University
** Jillian Patricia Pirtle – stage and opera artist
** Sharon Vriend Robinette – historian – Davenport University
** Kira Thurman – historian – University of Michigan
** Leslie Ueña – art historian – associate curator, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
** Denise Doring Vanburen – president general, Daughters of the American Revolution
In this film, we follow the life and career of Marian Anderson. We learn how her career began in the US in 1919 and how she went on an extended tour of Europe (1930-1935).
The European tour was a great success. When she returned to the US, she was rich and famous, but in the US, she was still a black woman; she was still a second-class citizen in her own country.
One episode is covered in great detail: the controversy concerning Constitution Hall and the Daughters of the American Revolution which took place in 1939.
Constitution Hall, which was built in the 1920s, was owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. When this organization did not use the hall, it was rented out to artists who deserved the "honor" of performing there.
The NAACP wanted Marian Anderson to perform a concert in this hall. However, the DAR had a whites-only policy. They refused to let Marian Anderson perform in their hall.
When the organization came under pressure, the leaders held a closed meeting to decide the issue. The result of a secret ballot was that 39 of 41 women supported the whites-only policy.
The DAR refused to give in to pressure from other groups.
Then there was a new development:
The First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt – who was an honorary member of the DAR – made a public announcement that she had resigned her membership of the organization in order to mark her disagreement with the whites-only policy. But even this did not change the decision.
While Eleanor Roosevelt’s public stand was quite impressive, it was also met with some criticism. Jim Crow rules were found all over Washington, DC. In schools, in restaurants and in shops, but the First Lady had never protested against this. Why focus on just one case? Why not focus on the whole problem?
An alternative location was suggested:
Perhaps it was possible to hold an open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial?
Permission was granted and the concert took place on Easter Sunday, 9 April 1939.
On that day, Marian Anderson performed in front of an audience of 75,000. It was a significant moment in US history.
After World War Two, in the 1950s, Marian Anderson was still admired by many, but not by all. She was being criticized by the NAACP, because she accepted to perform in front of segregated audiences.
The NAACP did not like that. They wanted her to refuse to do this. At first, she refused, but later she changed her mind and accepted to follow a more militant line regarding civil rights.
In 1963, when Martin Luther King gave his famous speech “I Have a Dream,” the mass meeting was held at the Lincoln Memorial and Marian Anderson performed here as well.
Voice of Freedom is a powerful film, because the life and career of a great opera singer is placed in a historical, political and cultural context.
The history of Marian Anderson’s life and career is in many ways also the history of the US from 1919 when her career began until 1963 when a new generation of African-Americans took charge of the civil rights movement.
If you are interested in the modern history of the US – in particular the question of civil rights – this film is definitely something for you.
It is highly recommended.
I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
My Lord! What a Morning by Marian Anderson
(first published in 1956)
(reprinted in 2002 and in 2015)
OTHER REFERENCES
# 1. Books
The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial and the Concert that Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault
(2009)
Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey by Allan Keiler
(Hardcover 2000)
(Paperback 2002)
The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman
(2011)
(this volume is written for young readers)
# 2. A documentary film
Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands
PBS - American Masters
Director: Rita Coburn
Run time: 113 minutes
(2022)
*****
Marian Anderson (1897-1993)
Performing at the open-air concert
held at the Lincoln Memorial
on 9 April 1939
*****
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