Marian Anderson
In 1938 Anderson did a 70-concert tour in the United States. In 1939 the Daughters of the American Revolution would not let Anderson perform in the DAR Constitution Hall to an audience of blacks and whites. The District of Columbia Board of Education also said that Anderson could not perform at a white high school Charles Edward Russell gave a meeting about this the next day. At the meeting the Marian Anderson Citizens Committee was formed. The group planned a protest at the next board of education meeting. President Roosevelt and Walter White got the Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes to arrange an open air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. On Easter Sunday 1939 Anderson performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to a crowd of 75,000 people that contained both blacks and whites. She started the concert by singing "America". She also sung “My Country, ’Tis of Thee”. The concert has been described as having started the civil rights movement for equality between African Americans and white Americans. A documentary film was made of the concert. In 2001 the film was added to the by the Library of Congress.