I tell this story to some of my classes on the last day of class. For personal reasons, I'd like also to tell it here.

At the very beginning of this century a voice was born. A voice that was called the voice of the century--better than Caruso, better than all. This voice belonged to an African-American woman named Marian Anderson. She spent her youth signing in black Churches and Colleges. But there was no room in the USA for a voice as big as hers, so she went to Europe and became, indeed, the voice of the century. She was not political, admittedly by her own choice. But she had a voice. A voice that at its peak could range over seven octaves.

Yet even Europe could not protect this voice. In the shadows of WWII, it was too dangerous for such a voice to belong to a black woman. Anderson came back to the USA. People were anxious to hear this voice. She was booked into DAR Constitution Hall, the hall owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Well, the DAR may have had roots dating back to the founding of the USA and they were certainly politically powerful. They weren't however, very attuned to classical musical. The DAR did not know Anderson was black. When they found out this awful truth, they cancelled her concert. FDR, at the insistence of Eleanor, asked Anderson to sing the wide open spaces of the Mall. She finally agreed. Here is what she wrote about it: "I examined my conscious and came to realize that sometimes it does not matter what you think, but only who you are. I have not cared for politics, it is an ugly business, but I find now I have meaning. I'm frightened. Will there be bloodshed, as many say? Will my voice be heard in this setting? What if no words, no music, comes when I open my mouth?"

The music did come. There were no riots. In fact, Anderson signed with the Met, though she did not get a lead until she was 57. Anderson died 3 years ago. She was a voice.

In each of our lives, on some level or another, we each will have to decide that who we are and what actions we can take matter more than what we feel. It is not a nice world. It is not a world we can pretend to make smooth. It is not a level world and all the pleas that we act as though it somehow were level are useless, until we make it so. It will someday fall to you to speak. What will you say?

Marian Anderson opened her concert with these words: "My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing." If you can ever listen to the tape, do so, hers was a voice of the century. As she sung those opening words, she was wondering from who and and where the bullet would come. A voice for the century.