Presents the life of the influential opera singer and civil rights activist, who became the first African American to sing a role with the New York Metropolitan Opera Company and who later served as a delegate to the United Nations.

Marian Anderson loved to sing and her deep, rich voice thrilled audiences the world over. When she was denied the right to sing at Constitution Hall, Washington's largest and finest auditorium, because of her race, she became involved in the civil rights movement and came to stand for all black artists. With the help of Eleanor Roosevelt, she gave a landmark performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that broke racial barriers and hastened the end of segregation in the arts.

For use in schools and libraries only. An account of the life of a talented and determined artist who left her mark on musical and social history is drawn from Anderson's own writings and other contemporary accounts.

Few moments in Civil Rights history are as important as the morning of Sunday April 9, 1939 when Marian Anderson sang before a throng of thousands lined up along the Mall by the Lincoln Memorial. She had been banned from the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall because she was black. When Eleanor Roosevelt, who resigned from the DAR over the incident, took up Anderson's cause, however, it became a national issue. The controversy showed Americans that discrimination was not simply a regional problem. As Arsenault shows, Anderson's dignity and courage enabled her, like a female Jackie Robinson - but several years before him - to strike a vital blow for civil rights. Today the moment still resonates. Postcards and CDs of Anderson are sold at the Memorial and Anderson is still considered one of the greats of 20th century American music. In a short but richly textured narrative, Raymond Arsenault captures the struggle for racial equality in pre-WWII America and a moment that inspired blacks and whites alike. In rising to the occasion, he writes, Marion Anderson "consecrated" the Lincoln Memorial as a shrine of freedom. In the 1963 March on Washington Martin Luther King would follow, literally, in her footsteps.

Introduces "the life of Lena Horne, the pioneering African American actress, [singer], and civil rights activist"--Amazon.com.

A biography of the 19th century Frenchman who developed Braille. The book spans Braille's life from childhood through his days at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth and into his final years, when the alphabet he invented was finally gaining acceptance.