NEGRO AT WHITE HOUSE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23832, 12 June 1939, Page 16

NEGRO AT WHITE HOUSE

Listeners to Mr Raymond Gram Swing's recent broadcast from the United States .heard Mr Swing describe pointedly how Marian Anderson, the well-known coloured soprano, was, on account of her negro blood, refused by the Daughters of the American Revolution permission to sing in their Constitution Hal! (one of the finest buildings in Washington, where the sittings of the Naval Conference in 1921 and 1922 were held). As Mr Swing mentioned.'one of the first reactions was an offer by Mr Harold Ickes, the United States Secretary of the Interior, to allow Miss Anderson to sing from the portico of the Lincoln Memorial—an unprecedented honour. She sang there on a recent Sunday. Now Mrs Roosevelt, who had already resigned her membership of the Daughters of the American Revolution as a protest, has invited Miss Anderson to sing before the King and Queen when they visit Washington. It seems, comments “Janus” in the Spectator, a decisive gesture, in worthy succession to the action of President Theodore Roosevelt in inviting Dr Booker Washington, the negro leader, to the White House,