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Posts tagged as “Marian Anderson”

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Classical and Opera Singer Marian Anderson – “The Voice of Freedom” (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast expands on the Tuesday, February 8 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022, which offers an inspirational quote from famous contralto Marian Anderson.

I include that, as well as a bit more historical context and links to sources, which can be found in the show’s transcript below.

(Btw, GBN’s Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 is 50% off at workman.com with code:50CAL until 2/28/22!)

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, February 8th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today, on #OperaDay, we offer an inspirational quote from famous contralto Marian Anderson, the first Black performer to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.

In addition to her commanding voice, Anderson is widely known for singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939 after the Daughters of the American Revolution enforced their segregationist beliefs and denied Anderson the opportunity to sing to an integrated audience at Constitution Hall in Washington D.C.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and President Roosevelt supported Anderson, and over 75,000 people showed up to watch her outdoor concert.  To quote Anderson:

“Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.”

To learn more about Anderson, you can check out her 1956 autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning, the book about her landmark performance called The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault or the 2011 award-winning children’s book The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman.

You can also watch Voice of Freedom, the 2021 PBS documentary about Anderson. Links to these sources provided in today’s show notes.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022, published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

(paid links)

“Black Americana”: Traditional and Modern Takes on Patriotic Songs by African American Artists (LISTEN)

[Photos: Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock; Marian Anderson at Lincoln Memorial; Whitney Houston at Super Bowl XXV]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Yesterday was a good day. As Joe Biden and Kamala Harris became President-Elect and Vice President-Elect of the United States of America, in several cities across the nation literal dancing broke out in the streets. So many people from all stripes of life — Black, Brown, white, Asian, Indigenous — were together exhibiting their joy at the victory.

The massive turnout — in the middle of a surging pandemic, no less — to celebrate the repudiation of the path towards division and exclusion in favor of the path towards inclusivity and diversity was the most patriotic thing I’ve witnessed on a national level in a long time. And so many were carrying and waving American flags.

It’s being acknowledged in the media – as well as in President Elect Biden’s speech – how vital the African American community was in saving this nation’s democracy.  The visuals and the fireworks brought home for me just how much at heart Black people are patriots.

Even though from jump we have been treated unjustly, cruelly, unfairly — we have worked tirelessly to fight for the ideals America is supposed to stand for. Justice. Freedom. Equality. Perhaps we believe in democracy the most because we have always been the most vulnerable when it doesn’t exist.

Hearing Vice President-Elect Harris strut out to Mary J. Blige‘s “Work That” and President Elect Biden sprint out to Bruce Springsteen‘s “We Take Care of Our Own” before their respective speeches, then enjoy the crowd and fireworks to some Jackie Wilson, Coldplay, Hall & Oates and Tina Turner, made me think about some of my favorite takes on patriotic American songs by African American artists that could have been cool to play as well. (My most recent favorite from the past few years? Jon Batiste‘s inventive, unexpectedly moving version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”)

When my sister Lesa texted me a song she’d been listening to all day — “This Land Is Our Land” by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings — my thoughts turned to action and I started making the playlist below I call “Black Americana” for inspiration now and in the months to come:

[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:5X7NWDviuh5ITT9e22wD2a”/]

National Museum of African American History and Culture to Honor March on Washington 37th Anniversary Via Free Online Films & IG Posts

On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 people gathered on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to March for Jobs and Freedom.

This month, more than 50 years later, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture will commemorate the March on Washington with a digital resource webpage exploring the historical significance of the march with collection objects, stories, videos and content related to the historic march.

This page will include voices of union leader and activist A. Phillip Randolph, Rep. John Lewis, and many unsung activists and a performance by singer Marian Anderson. The resource webpage is available at nmaahc.si.edu/marchonwashington.

To mark the anniversary day (Aug. 28), the museum will also make available the film commissioned for its grand opening by Ava Duvernay, August 28: A Day in the Life of a People. The film will be available to view on the museum’s homepage and YouTube channel starting at 10:00 a.m. for 24 hours.

Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery Debuts “Posing Modernity,” an Exhibition on The Evolution of Black Women Models in Art

Frédéric Bazille – Young Woman with Peonies, 1870. (Photograph: National Gallery of Art/Image courtesy National Gallery of Art)

by  via theguardian.com

In 1863, the French artist Édouard Manet painted Olympia, a reclining nude prostitute, shedding a scandalous light on Parisian brothel culture. But while much of the attention has been on the white model in the painting, Victorine Meurent, the black model beside her, Laure, has been largely overlooked by art historians.

Curator Denise Murrell (photo via 92y.org)

“People have told me, ‘It’s not that I didn’t see the black maid in the painting, I just didn’t know what to say about her’,” said the curator Denise Murrell. “I always felt she is presented in a more stronger light than maids usually are, and I wondered what could be said about her, even though art history said very little.”

This one painting then sparked the exhibition which Murrell has curated, Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today, opening at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery in New York on October 24th.

From photography to painting and sculpture, as well as film and print correspondence, this exhibit traces how the black figure has been key to the development of modern art over the past 150 years. Many of the artists here bring to light much of what art history has ignored.

“I’m looking for angles that are more relevant than just the standard narrative of the art world,” said Murrell. “I’m giving a number of different narratives that can be discussed around the black figure; there is a wider variety of black models, especially the black female figure, in broader, social roles.”

Henri Matisse, Dame à la robe blanche (Woman in white),1946. (Photograph: Courtesy of Des Moines Art Center)

Among the artists in the exhibit, there are works by Henri Matisse, including “Dame à la robe blanche (Woman in white),” from 1946, showing a black model in a white dress. The painting was made after the artist’s visit to Harlem in the 1930s, where he met local artists as part of the Harlem Renaissance, a black arts movement which celebrated African American culture.

Laura Wheeler Waring, one member of the group, was a painter who made portraits of African American civil rights figures, like author W.E.B. Du Bois and singer Marian Anderson.

“It shows the historical weight and significance of what Harlem artists were doing at the time,” said Murrell. “African American slavery or enslaved individuals were stereotyped and caricatured, and one thing Harlem Renaissance artists wanted to do was give dignity to black female figures, or to black figures, period.”

The other Harlem Renaissance painters in the exhibit include William H. Johnson, who captured the everyday lives of African Americans, whether it was groups of friends in urban settings to rural families, all of which tell “the critical story of modern portrayals of black figures”, said Murrell.

There are also works by Charles Alston, who was known locally for painting murals in Harlem hospitals, but was also recognized as a painter for his portraits of musicians, groups of cotton workers and family portraits. Alston is widely recognized for his bust of Martin Luther King Jr., which today sits in the White House. “He shows African Americans as the urban middle class,” said Murrell. “All aspects of life, high and low, are captured in his paintings.”

The more recent artworks in the exhibit, made over the past 50 years, are different from those, say, 100 years ago. “It’s more empowered because we now have a presence, artists of color,” she said. “You have black portraits by black artists, which broadens the range of artistic styles and strategies.”

Mickalene Thomas – Din, une très belle négresse, 2012. (Photograph: shootArt Mobile/Courtesy of the artist)

There are paintings by female artists such as Mickalene Thomas, who recently captured Cardi B for the cover of W Magazine’s art issue. In “Din, une très belle négresse,” from 2012, is a portrait of a black woman painted colorfully in retro garb.

“She takes 19th-century black women portrayals, but shows them in expressive ways, with rhinestones, afro wigs and a 1970s look,” said Murrell. “They’re women portrayed as sensual but in control of their sensuality, in a manner that shows a black woman who wants to be herself.

“And it’s not just black women, but women period, as sensual but in control of their sensuality and not just for the gaze of the presumed viewer, the white male,” adds Murrell, “You see that perspective unfolding to a more diverse group of artists and subjects of art.”

The exhibit features works by black female artists like Faith Ringgold, known for her quilts portraying black figures like Aunt Jemima, alongside Ellen Gallagher, who has cut up old advertisements of black women to offer her own perspective.

“You can see the evolution as the black figure comes closer to subjectivity, or agency, portrayed by women artists,” said Murrell, “or by showing black women in a way that’s closer to their own modes of self-representation.”

Though the black female figure in art has changed over the past 150 years, there is still progress to be made ahead. “There’s still an underrepresentation of black women artists, and black artists, in the contemporary art world,” said Murrell.

The exhibit is complete in one way, but incomplete in another. “I hope it gives a sense of history to the kind of art we look at today,” said Murrell. “There was a black presence in modern art, we see that in this show and I hope we start seeing more of it.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/22/matisse-to-modernity-the-evolution-of-black-female-models-in-art

Born On This Day in 1897: Opera Legend Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson, who became one of the most celebrated singers during the 20th century, was born on Feb. 27, 1897, in Philadelphia, PA.  She began singing in church at 6 years old. Impressed by Anderson’s dedication to perfecting her talents, her church choir raised money for her to take vocal lessons for two years. Anderson soon won a chance to perform at Lewisohn Stadium in New York, and more opportunities followed. 

President Franklin Roosevelt and wife Eleanor invited her to perform at the White House in 1936. In 1939, she faced discrimination from the Daughters of the American Revolution, who did not want her to perform at D.C.’s Constitution Hall. When Eleanor Roosevelt heard of this, she invited Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial.
The singer made history in 1955 as the first African-American to perform as a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.  Anderson passed away at the age of 96 in 1993.
article by Natelege Whaley via bet.com

GBN Quote Of The Day

“Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.”
–Marian Anderson, nationally-renowned opera singer