Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America

(NYTimes) - The Lincoln Memorial has been the site of some of recent American history’s most defining moments: On a warm August day in 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, and nearly a half-century later, on a chilly morning in January, crowds gathered to celebrate Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration. The memorial’s association with civil rights seems as reflexive as it feels indelible. In 1939, however, the 17-year-old Lincoln Memorial stood in the middle of a segregated city and paid tribute to the president whom many white Americans honored for preserving unity rather than for ending slavery. Continued

Photo: Harold L. Ickes collection (Library of Congress).