The Voice That Rang From the Lincoln Memorial

On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stood before the Lincoln Memorial and opened her mouth to sing. The Daughters of the American Revolution had barred her from Constitution Hall because of the color of her skin. But Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her membership in protest, and the Department of the Interior opened the National Mall instead. Seventy-five thousand people gathered on that cold April morning — Black and white, young and old — stretching from the memorial steps to the Washington Monument.

Anderson began with "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and her voice carried across that vast crowd like something not entirely of this world. Listeners wept openly. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes introduced her simply: "Genius draws no color line." When she closed with "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen," the crowd stood in stunned, holy silence before erupting in thunderous applause.

What happened that morning was more than a concert. It was a marvelous thing — the kind the psalmist had in mind. God's right hand made room where human prejudice had shut the door. His righteousness was revealed before the eyes of the nations, broadcast live on radio to millions.

Psalm 98 calls us to sing a new song because the Lord has done marvelous things. Sometimes the Almighty writes that new song through the voice of one faithful woman standing where hatred said she could not stand, singing what injustice tried to silence.