The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault

Author:Raymond Arsenault [Arsenault, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2009-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

Prior to the planning, however, the organizers faced the task of gaining permission to use the Memorial for such an unprecedented purpose. Here Walter White proved to be the indispensable link to the Department of the Interior. Not only had White known Secretary Ickes since the early 1920s, when Ickes, then a young social worker, had served as president of the Chicago branch of the NAACP, but White was even closer to Assistant Secretary Oscar L. Chapman. Prior to his appointment as Ickes’s assistant, Chapman had worked for Senator Edward Costigan of Colorado, the cosponsor, with Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York, of the Costigan-Wagner antilynching bill. While the antilynching bill was under consideration, White met with Costigan and Chapman on several occasions and came away with enormous respect for both men. In a letter written to Anderson the week before the concert, White described Chapman as “a protégé of one of the greatest human beings who ever lived,” giving him much of the credit for securing permission for her to sing at the Lincoln Memorial. Some accounts even suggest that Chapman prompted White to consider using the Memorial for the Anderson concert. “Oh, my God,” White supposedly responded, “if we could have her sit at the feet of Lincoln!”9

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