Award-winning Civil Rights historian Ray Arsenault describes the dramatic story behind Marian Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial - an unrecognized turning point in civil rights history - on the 70th anniversary of her performance--a "story that's well worth retelling," according to the New York Times.

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.

Praise for Sound of Freedom:

“A tightly focused look at the political and cultural events that led up to and came after her famous 1939 concert. It’s a story that’s well worth retelling.”—New York Times Read full review. Read excerpt.

“On the 70th anniversary of that groundbreaking concert, The Sound of Freedom reminds readers of a turning point in American life.”—New York Times Book Review. Read full review.