[NARRATOR:] Anderson had come here for the soundcheck earlier in the day;
had tried out the microphones,
looked out over the empty Mall.
But when she was driven back for the concert,
the sight of the crowd took her breath away.
[V/O:] I had such a feeling that I had never had before.
I just couldn’t say anything.
And I remember that there were policemen who came to the car
and escorted me to the monument.
We went into a little room behind there.
[ALLIDA BLACK:] You know, she’d sung to three, four thousand, you know, maybe five thousand.
But this is seventy-five thousand people.
And they’d been standing outside for hours.
[NARRATOR:] Anderson would be surrounded onstage by two hundred public figures
who had signed up as co-sponsors of the event,
ranging from Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black
to movie star Tallulah Bankhead.
[V/O:] Then came the signal that we were to go out.
My heart was throbbing to the point that I could scarcely hear anything.
[ANGELA BROWN:] She steps down those stairs,
and she lifts her head up,
and she begins to look out on the sea of people.
The diversity in that crowd was astonishing.
[LUCY CAPLAN:] She looks very majestic,
but she seems very small against this vast, vast white background
of this hyper-symbolic space.
The anticipation must have been beyond anything we could imagine.
[RADIO ANNOUNCER:] Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
We’re speaking to you from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital
from which point the National Broadcasting Company
brings you a song recital by the gifted Marian Anderson,
considered by music critics throughout the world
as possessing a most outstanding...
[BLACK:] You had this fear of,
“Oh, my God look at the people”
and this irrational hope that’s placed on her,
You could see from the films
that when she closes her eyes,
you know, and takes that first deep breath...
[MARIAN ANDERSON:] My country, ‘tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
To thee we sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From ev'ry mountainside
Let freedom ring!
[NARRATOR:] “The moment Miss Anderson started to sing,”
one newsman recounted,
“there descended upon the multitude a reverent silence.”
[ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH:] Can you just imagine standing amongst 75,000 people
at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939
looking at a Black woman singing?
It’s stunning, right?
No matter who you were,
that moment must have felt amazing.
[MARIAN ANDERSON:] I’m Trampin’
Trying to make Heaven my home.
[ALISHA JONES:] She sang of her citizenship as a person in the United States.
And she sang of her citizenship as a Black woman.
[MARIAN ANDERSON:] Hallelujah, I’m Trampin’
[ALISHA JONES:] Singing the songs of the Negro spiritual.
If that ain’t an Easter Sunday message, then what is?
She arose y’all!
[MARIAN ANDERSON:] Trying to make Heaven my home.
[NARRATOR:] When she was done, and on the verge of tears,
Anderson spoke to the crowd for the first and only time.
“My dear friends,” she said,
“I am so overwhelmed that I cannot express myself.
I hope you will ever find me grateful for the wonderful things you have done for me.
Please try to imagine all the things I cannot say.”