MARIAN ANDERSON AND ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
July 2, 1939

When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused opera star Marian Anderson a place on stage in segregated Washington, D.C., First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the all-white organization and arranged for Anderson to deliver an outdoor concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Anderson sung to an audience of 75,000 on Easter Sunday, 1939.

Three months later in Richmond, Roosevelt presented Anderson with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Award for her perseverance against racial discrimination. Photographers and national radio networks were on hand to capture the moment at The Mosque, now Altria Theater.

The NAACP had come to Richmond for its annual conference. Just a year prior, black tobacco workers took to the picket lines for the first time to strike against unjust conditions in the city’s dominant tobacco industry, an event that foreshadowed future civil rights’ struggles in the city.

Marian Anderson being presented the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, n.d. Gelatin silver print, Courtesy of the New York Public Library