The Voice on the Steps

In 1939, Marian Anderson stood on the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial and sang. The Daughters of the American Revolution had barred her from Constitution Hall because of her race. So Eleanor Roosevelt helped arrange something far grander — an open-air concert before 75,000 people gathered on the National Mall. Anderson was the granddaughter of enslaved people. She had scrubbed floors to pay for voice lessons in Philadelphia.…