Sketch of Marian Anderson's 1939 Concert

This sketch commemorates Marian Anderson’s famous 1939 performance at the Lincoln Memorial, where she sang after being barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall. The drawing is a late sketch for graphic artist Donnell Lewis’s final 1990 census poster. A smaller sketch in the foreground shows Marian Anderson standing behind several microphones in her fur coat, flanked by a piano player and Lincoln’s statue. The center of the drawing offers a close-up depiction of the contralto standing before an American flag hung between two columns. The perspective is that of an audience member gazing upward, reinforcing the artist’s goal to encourage Americans to raise their voices and answer the census, just as Anderson used her voice to challenge racial discrimination.