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| Artist's conception. Copyright 2025 |
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Marian Anderson was born in Philadelphia in 1897, the daughter of a coal and ice dealer who himself was the son of an emancipated slave, and a mother who had some college but never graduated and thus earned extra money caring for small children. Devout Christians, Marian's parents discovered their eldest daughter was an exceptionally talented vocalist when she started singing in the junior choir of the Union Baptist Church at the age of six. In fact, the whole church was impressed, impressed enough that when her father died from a head injury when she was 12, leaving the family without much in the way of disposable income, the whole congregation raised enough money for Marian to train with a succession of musical teachers. Eventually, Marian came to the attention of the acclaimed music teacher Giuseppe Boghetti, whose students included soon-to-be acclaimed opera singers Jan Peerce and Helen Traubel. An even bigger break came when Marian won a singing competition sponsored by the New York Philharmonic and got to perform with the orchestra, a performance that finally won her acclaim from critics and audiences alike. In 1928, she gave her first performance in Carnegie Hall. A highly successful European tour followed. Then a successful one right here in the United States, followed by several more successful tours both here and abroad. The acclaimed conductor Arturo Toscanini told the now-acclaimed granddaughter of a slave that she had a voice "heard once in 100 years."
Only in America.
Only in America.
Only in America.
Watch:
Well, that was then, and this is now. Under the present circumstances, you'd think they let a black woman, no matter how acclaimed, sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial? Nah. Too DEI. As for the song she sung in the above clip, might the line "sweet land of liberty" also soon come to be seen as too DEI?
Only time, in America, will tell.
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On June 19, 1865, that war finally having been won in the North's favor, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, took command of 2,000 federal troops in Texas, the last place in the former Confederate States of America where slavery still was practiced, and informed the people in that state that the practice was now over:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
Idleness? Jeez, stereotypes start early, don't they? If they're as lazy as all that, what was the point in making them slaves in the first place? However, let's end this on an audaciously hopeful note with a quote by a man who was anything but idle:
Juneteenth has never been a celebration of victory or an acceptance of the way things are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, change is possible—and there is still so much work to do.
--Barack Obama
