How Marian Anderson Shaped The Civil Rights Era With A Song You Learned In Sunday School

Anderson, Marian passed away today, thirty years ago, while visiting her brother in Portland, Oregon. Anderson, who was once one of the most powerful American National figures in the United States, changed the course of our country and our children.

In the past 50 years, almost every child who attended Sunday School or Vacation Bible School has sung” He’s’s Got the Whole World in His Hands ,” complete with arm movements.

The track tells of the All-Powerful God who controls the wind and rain, the moon and the stars, a little tiny baby, you and I, sister and brother, as well as the entire world, even though the verses may vary.

It is actually an elderly African American moral that has been passed down orally in the rural South for years, despite being frequently introduced as a children‘s’s songs and even being included in some hymnals'” kids” area. It wasn’t published until 1927 in a collection of folk songs by African British singer and musician Edward Boatner titled” Spirituals Triumphant, Old and New.”

The renowned alto Anderson, Marian, whose voice European conductor Arturo Toscanini said” only comes up when in a hundred years ,” was one of the greatest artists of his time after” He’s’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” was published. Anderson, who was deeply spiritual and moved by the spiritual’s’s information, added it to her repertoire along with other works by Franz Schubert, Gaetano Donizetti,” La Favorite,” and” Komm, Süsser Tod” by J. S. Bach.

Anderson claimed in her 1957 book” My Lord What a Morning” that she chose it because it had appealed to me and had purpose. It is much more than just a music system number.

Anderson’s’s portrayal of the spiritual in her deep, heartfelt message came to represent her belief in an all-powerful God who excludes no one and holds” everyone” in His hands. In Job 12:10, Job says to his friends,” In His hand is the life of every living thing and every human being’s’s breath ,” and this song is a reflection of that statement.

It is a statement that emphasizes everyone’s’s equality and human dignity before God, including the little tiny baby, the siblings, and everyone else. Despite the African American singer’s’s numerous achievement abroad, it was a potent censure of the Jim Crow laws that punished her for her segregation, prejudice, and discrimination.

The note was undoubtedly appropriate for the day of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, when Dr. Jr. Martin Luther King. delivered his stirring” I Have A Dream” statement. He’s’s Got the Whole World in His Control! Anderson, whose devotion, courage, and exceptional skill had inspired Dr. King since he was a young child, sang in front of the large crowd of 250, 000 people.

Later years

Anderson, Marian, the oldest of three ladies, was born in Philadelphia on February 27, 1897. In order to escape the world where all four of her parents were descended from enslaved households, her life had relocated from Virginia to the city in search of better opportunities.

Marian’s’s love of music and talent for songs were later discovered at Union Baptist Church, where the Andersons regularly attended. She joined the chorus when she was only six years old. There, she quickly picked up music and was able to fill in for singer, bass, altos, and tenor parts. Because her father passed away in a work-related incident when she was really 12, she performed solos at neighborhood churches and community organizations while earning money to support her family.

Boghetti, Giuseppe, an Italian voice coach who was so moved by her abilities( he wept when she sang” Deep River”) that he gave her completely training for a year after the Philadelphia Music Academy denied her admittance due to her culture. She won a competition to perform with the Philharmonic of New York at Lewisohn Stadium in 1925. She later embarked on her first of many European tours in 1930 after winning awards and scholarships and maturing in her singing. There, she received praise for her great, powerful voice from orchestrators, kings, and audiences.

In his house, she performed for the renowned Scandinavian musician Jean Sibelius. He dedicated the song” Solitude” to her after telling her that her performance of” My Roof Is Too Low For You” had been so moving.

Anderson continued to deal with closed doors despite her worldwide renown. She performed at McCarter Theatre, a concert venue in Princeton, but was turned away from Princeton‘s’s The Nassau Inn, which adhered to the whites-only insurance. Dr. Einstein, Albert, an audience member, invited the song to his house and started a long connection with her after learning that she had been turned down by the lodge.

Serious Professionalism

But perhaps the most spectacular time in her career occurred in 1939 while she was on a concert tour of the United States. The most well-liked and appropriate location for a music in Washington, D.C., was Constitution Hall. The building’s’s owner, the American Revolution’s’s Sons, however, forbade her from singing due to her skin tone.

Roosevelt Eleanor’s’s family formally resigned from the DAR as a result of the uproar, which sparked the renowned Easter Sunday 1939 music at the Memorial to Lincoln. It was the first significant integrated event in the nation’s’s capital, drawing more than 75 000 attendees and a broadcast radio audience.

Anderson began her concert with a stirring” My Country, Tis of Thee ,” followed by arias and art songs, and concluded with spirituals. She was introduced with the phrase” genius knows no color lines.”

Jr. Martin Luther King., then ten years old, chose the Memorial to Lincoln for the 1963 polite right march on Washington, where Anderson sang once more, after listening to her historical performance on the radio.

Anderson achieved numerous African American” successes” despite the heinous prejudice. She was the first person to function in Constitution Hall, the White House, national ceremonies, and the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1955, playing Ulrica in Verdi’s’s” Un Ballo In Maschera.”

belief in the world-holding God

Anderson performed for mesmerized audiences all over the world with a steadfast belief and an intense, lifelong love of music. She continued her society tour in 1957 while serving as the grace ambassador for the U.S. State Department in Israel, the South Pacific, and Asia. She had previously performed in the United States, Europe, or South America.

Her most priceless spiritual,” He’s’s Got the Whole World in His Hands ,” which she sang reverently and passionately, was frequently featured in her programs. Anderson captivated audiences all over the world with her beautiful tone. ” He’s’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” by Anderson was chosen for the National Registry of the Library of Congress in 2003 and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.

In a 2002 benefits to her book, her brother, renowned orchestra director James DePreist, wrote about his uncle:

Humility, anchored in faith and love for Anderson, Marian’s’s presents, comes to mind when I consider the traits that are most frequently associated with her. It was impossible to be arrogant. My uncle never believed that she was solely responsible for her triumphs; instead, she saw them as primarily God’s’s doing. She may say,” My component in it is very large indeed.

She never lost sight of the fact that Anderson, Marian and the entire world are in the possession of a great, great God throughout her entire lifetime.