Although her magnificent contralto voice and extraordinary musical abilities were recognized early on, Marian Anderson's American career did not soar until 1939, when she performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. At that juncture, her life mission was as much sociological as musical. Not only did she win acceptance for herself and all black performers to appear before unsegregated audiences but she helped initiate the civil rights movement that would flower in the 1960s.

Anderson had no singing instruction until she was seventeen. In 1925, she won a vocal competition in which 300 entrants sought an appearance with the New York Philharmonic in Lewisohn Stadium. Arturo Toscanini heard her in Salzburg, Austria, and declared, "a voice like hers is heard only once in a hundred years."

Popular belief is that her career nearly foundered again and again because she was black, but...