Verizon Hall has been renamed after Marian Anderson, ‘the lady from Philadelphia.’ Who was she?

If God had come from Philadelphia, she would have sounded like Marian Anderson. Contralto is the lowest female classical voice, and Anderson’s was powerful, refined, expressive, and had that rare quality of communicating instant charisma.

Born in 1897, she trained in Philadelphia and managed to forge a top-tier career as a recital artist in Europe and the United States from the 1920s to the 1960s despite the prejudice of the times. In 1939, she was refused a recital appearance in a Washington, D.C., hall because of her race, and her performance at the outdoor concert held instead became a key moment in the civil rights movement.

“Marian Anderson’s art grows deeper and richer with the years,” the New York Times wrote in 1942 after a standing-room-only Carnegie Hall recital. Critics routinely praised her sound and interpretive depth, and she became an inspiration to generations of singers. She died in 1993.

She’s been honored in several ways in her hometown — her one-time home in South Philadelphia is a house museum devoted to her legacy — and now her name is on a major downtown concert hall.

Here, in quotes from her autobiography My Lord, What a Morning, “the lady from Philadelphia” — as Anderson was often called — recounts some key moments from her life.

Then she spoke to me and her voice was not friendly. “What do you want?” I tried to ignore her manner and replied that I had come to make inquiries regarding an application for entry to the school. She looked at me coldly and said, “We don’t take colored.” It was as if a cold, horrifying hand had been laid on me. I turned and walked out.

[Composer and choir director R. Nathaniel Dett] took a personal interest in my career. One night after a concert we took a drive, and he talked about music and my future. He stressed that one should not compromise in matters of art, and he indicated there might be sacrifices along the way.

I went back to Philadelphia deeply disturbed. I did not want to see any music; I did not want to hear any; I did not want to make a career of it.

Some time after the Hitler regime took power, when I was doing a great deal of singing in Scandinavia, my Stockholm manager received an inquiry from Berlin asking whether I would be free to sing in Germany. [A date was arranged and a fee agreed upon.] There was only one other question — was Marian Anderson an Aryan? My manager replied that Miss Anderson was not one-hundred-per-cent Aryan. That ended the correspondence.

At intermission time Madame Cahier appeared backstage with Maestro Toscanini. The sight of him caused my heart to leap and throb so violently that I did not hear a word he said. All I could do was mumble a thank you, sir, thank you very much, and then he left. Madame Cahier, however, was not so nervous. She heard and told me of Maestro’s words: “Yours is a voice such as one hears once in a hundred years.”

The crowd stretched in a great semicircle from the Lincoln Memorial around the reflecting pool on to the shaft of the Washington Monument. I had a feeling that a great wave of good will poured out from these people, almost engulfing me. And when I stood up to sing our National Anthem I felt for a moment as though I were choking. For a desperate second I thought that the words, as well as I know them, would not come. I sang, I don’t know how.

The chance to be a member of the Metropolitan [Opera] has been a highlight of my life. It has meant much to me and to my people. If I have been privileged to serve as a symbol, to be the first Negro to sing as a regular member of the company, I take greater pride from knowing that it has encouraged other singers of my group to realize that the doors everywhere may open increasingly to those who have prepared themselves well.