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Sixty years after the March on Washington, a bit of historical past lives on at Philadelphia’s Nationwide Marian Anderson Museum.
The museum tells the story of Anderson, a girl who gave voice to a motion. Whereas she’s greatest identified for her 1939 Lincoln Memorial efficiency of “America (My Nation, ‘Tis of Thee),” Anderson additionally carried out in the course of the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.
Racism performed a big function in Anderson’s life and profession. In 1939, she’d been set to carry out at Structure Corridor, however the venue banned Black performers. As a substitute, she sang to a crowd of 75,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Anderson continued breaking limitations. In 1955, she turned the primary Black singer to carry out in a principal function on the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
“What she did was signify hope, chance and alternative for Black folks,” Jillian Patricia Pirtle, CEO of the Nationwide Marian Anderson Museum, mentioned.
The museum is residence to the telephone Anderson used to reply the decision about performing on the March on Washington.
“This telephone simply speaks of historical past and speaks of the tales and the life,” Pirtle mentioned.
She returned to the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington and sang “He is Received the Complete World in His Arms.”
In the summertime of 2020, catastrophe struck on the museum. Amid COVID shutdowns, a burst water pipe triggered a serious flood, damaging and destroying dozens of artifacts. The constructing wanted repairs.
“Once you see such historical past simply floating and you do not know how it should be mounted, it was greater than I may bear,” Pirtle mentioned.
Whereas the museum stays closed for now, volunteers and donations are serving to to deliver it again to life. As repairs proceed, Pirtle holds pop-up displays at colleges within the space in order that college students can study Anderson’s legacy.
As an opera singer herself, Pirtle says she was impressed by Anderson as a baby. Now it is her flip to hold the torch, preserving Anderson’s music and reminiscence for generations to come back.
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