DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Music School Reject to Celebrated Vocalist and Activist

Imagine This: You are a young black woman with a magnificent voice, but you have no money for singing lessons, and even if you could take singing lessons, where would you sing? As a young black woman, many restaurants refuse to serve you and some hotels refuse to give you a room. So where would you sing? Certainly not in any American concert hall. So do you give up your dream?

 You’re born in South Philadelphia in 1897, the first of three daughters. Your mother has been a teacher and your father sells coal and ice. Your father is also an usher in the church your family attends, and you join the junior choir when you’re six.

 Mr. Robinson, the choir director, encourages your musical talent and, when you’re eight, you talk your father into buying an old piano. There’s no money for music lessons, so you teach yourself enough to play music to sing by.

 Following your father’s death when you’re ten, your family moves in with your paternal grandparents, and your mother supports the family by taking in laundry and working as a cleaning woman--the only kind of work available to black women back then.

 Music and the church are important to you, and by age thirteen, you’re the youngest member of the senior choir at your church where you thrill audiences with the three-octave range of your voice.

 Three women are major influences in your life. Your mother’s faith instills a core of stability which lasts your entire life. Mary Saunders Patterson, a black music teacher at your high school, gives you free music lessons and even loans you a dress to wear to a concert. And Dr. Lucy Wilson, principal of your high school, rescues you from the business courses you’re taking to become a secretary, so that you can have more musical training as part of your high school curriculum. She even arranges many opportunities for you to sing in public.

 With the help of your church and Dr. Wilson arranging benefit concerts for you to raise money, you’re able to take private lessons from Guiseppe Boghetti a much-sought-after music teacher. When he hears you sing “Deep River,” he is moved to tears.

 After high school, you’re denied admission to a music school in Philadelphia because you’re black, but you continue to study with Boghetti. You win an important singing contest in New York City in 1925, and a top concert manager offers to represent you. But you can not escape the racism so deeply embedded in American life, and for almost a decade until 1935, your primary musical audiences are in Europe.

 Although you receive rave reviews in Europe, American audiences are not yet ready to accept you and you encounter a great deal of discrimination. Some restaurants refuse to serve you and some hotels refuse to give you a room. And, in 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refuse to let you sing in Constitution Hall in Washington, DC because you’re black.

 In 1954, Rudolf Bing, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, invites you to sing at the Metropolitan. January 7, 1955, is a historic occasion. You’re the first black singer to sing with the Metropolitan Opera and at the end of your performance, the audience thunders your name.

 In 1963, you receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor and ten years later, you’re elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

 By the time you die from congestive heart failure on April 8, 1993, at age ninety-six, you’re considered one of the greatest classical singers of all time. Perhaps your greatest legacy to the American people, however, is your demonstration by your own example that talent, dignity, and courage are more important than skin color and that one person can be an instrument for social change.

                     “I have a great belief in the future of my people and my country.”

                                             Marian Anderson (1897-1993)

Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

 For More about Marian Anderson

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3L1wAXKtA0&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL99A201CD9B2ACC1A

 Giving Back: Marian Anderson took her responsibilities as a  public figure seriously and from 1939 on she refused to sing at any segregated event. And in 1942, she established the Marian Anderson Scholarship Fund to aid emerging singers who needed financial assistance.

 Did You Know that Marian Anderson sang at President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s and President John F. Kennedy’s inaugurations?

Something to Think about: Why do you think it took American audiences so long to accept Marian Anderson?

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!