April 1939

After the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow contralto Marian Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall because of her race, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt arranged an outdoor concert at the Lincoln Memorial. An audience of 75,000 attended and millions more listened by radio, making it one of the most powerful symbolic moments of the civil rights era.

After Columbia refused the song, Holiday recorded Abel Meeropol's anti-lynching poem for Commodore Records on April 20, 1939. She performed it at Café Society in New York — insisting the room go silent — making it the closing number every night. Time magazine later named it Song of the Century.

Savage was commissioned to create a work for the 1939 New York World's Fair — one of few Black artists so honored. Her 16-foot plaster sculpture depicted a choir of Black children arranged as harp strings, with a hand rising to play them. It was destroyed after the fair; no permanent cast was made.

A haunting protest against lynching becomes one of the most powerful songs in American history.