In January 1955, Marian Anderson was the first black person to perform at which New York venue?
Marian Anderson of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. She sang before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions. Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955.
Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert is a 1939 documentary film which documents a concert performance by African American opera singer Marian Anderson after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) had her barred from singing in Washington D.C.'s Constitution Hall because she was black. Officials of the District of Columbia also barred her from performing in the auditorium of a white public high school. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped hold the concert at Lincoln Memorial, on federal property.