Speaker 1: Before nineteen thirty nine, she was seen in the world
Speaker 1: as a star, but not in America. So America was
Speaker 1: still Jim pro lynching people, whereas she was in Paris, London.
Speaker 1: Uh the Nordic countries embraced her most of all, sabellious Finland.
Speaker 1: This is where she was traveling when no one white
Speaker 1: or black was traveling that much. She had already given
Speaker 1: him one year, a hundred and sixty concerts in Europe.
Speaker 1: That was filmmaker Rita Cockburn talking about the legendary opera
Speaker 1: singer Marian Anderson. In nineteen thirty nine, Anderson gave a
Speaker 1: concert at the Lincoln Memorial that became one of the
Speaker 1: landmark moments of the civil rights movement. Today, Rita Cockburn,
Speaker 1: who directed a New Duck mentory about Anderson, is going
Speaker 1: to give us a fresh look at Marion Anderson's truly
Speaker 1: remarkable life. I'm the land Revere and this is Seneca's
Speaker 1: one Hundred Women to Hear. We are bringing you one
Speaker 1: hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making women
Speaker 1: you need to hear. Director producer Rita Coburn has won
Speaker 1: numerous awards for her films, including the Emmy. Her two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen documentary called Maya Angelus Still I Rise
Speaker 1: earned her a Peabody. Her latest film is Marion Anderson
Speaker 1: The Whole World in Her Hands. It's showing on PBS
Speaker 1: and it tells the singer story in her own voice.
Speaker 1: Listen and learn from Rita Cockburn why Marian Anderson is
Speaker 1: one of Seneca's one hundred Women to hear. I'm speaking
Speaker 1: today to Rita Cobe, producer, director, filmmaker, and so much
Speaker 1: more about Marian Anderson, classical singer and one of the
Speaker 1: all time greats. Welcome, Rita, Thanks for having me Milan.
Speaker 1: We're looking forward to our conversation about Marian Anderson. Were
Speaker 1: she alive today, she would be celebrating her hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty fifth birthday. How did you get to make her
Speaker 1: the subject of your great documentary and how should we
Speaker 1: remember her well? I have been in um documentary television
Speaker 1: on a local and national level for a long time now,
Speaker 1: and what I find is generally my subjects choose me,
Speaker 1: and then I chase the story until the story starts
Speaker 1: to chase me. And I had just finished Maya Angelo
Speaker 1: and really didn't of what I would do. I would
Speaker 1: have some real concerns about that what would follow Maya Angelo,
Speaker 1: you know, And I went off chasing a documentary that
Speaker 1: didn't pan out. And then, um, I'm like, um, maryon Anderson,
Speaker 1: a real person of prayer, and I don't believe people
Speaker 1: come back to speak to you, but I do believe
Speaker 1: that what's on your heart gets in your dreams and
Speaker 1: all the rest of that. And so I was really
Speaker 1: concerned about this and had a dream and in that dream,
Speaker 1: Maya Angelo said to me, your next documentary will be
Speaker 1: on Marian Anderson. And I thought Mary and Anderson. I
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about her. And then she was stern with
Speaker 1: me the way that she normally was in private conversations,
Speaker 1: and she said she has my initials. M A, I
Speaker 1: will help with a start because I thought, my gracious
Speaker 1: and um. I rolled over and my computer is general
Speaker 1: a right there, and I ordered a book on her.
Speaker 1: So I had that date and I had the book
Speaker 1: My Lord, What a Morning? And it was her autobiography.
Speaker 1: And I looked for documentaries that have been done and
Speaker 1: I saw that Weida had done one, and I went
Speaker 1: on to chase this other documentary and one year I
Speaker 1: was just so frustrated. I said, I was doing other
Speaker 1: things obviously, and then I just decided to go play golf.
Speaker 1: And when I got off the golf course in Florida,
Speaker 1: I got a call from Michael Cantor and he said,
Speaker 1: I have a documentary who won't I'd like you to
Speaker 1: do now. He's the executive producer of American Masters and
Speaker 1: we had worked together on the Maya Angelo and he said,
Speaker 1: it's Mary and Anderson. I said, I'll do it. He said,
Speaker 1: don't you want I said no, no, no, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: I will do it. And so she chose. My daughter
Speaker 1: studied classical music at the Manhattan School of Music at
Speaker 1: Lawrence University and in Vienna, and so I was always
Speaker 1: involved in classical music and opera. Those were some of
Speaker 1: my go to UH choices of music, along with jazz,
Speaker 1: and so I was familiar with the music. And I
Speaker 1: began to collect the books and began to read about
Speaker 1: her and read about the industry. And I really feel
Speaker 1: that it just called me. It just called me. And
Speaker 1: I've have to say to you that as this documentary
Speaker 1: is airing now, um, it's a bitter sweet for me
Speaker 1: because I've lived with her every day for the past
Speaker 1: three years and kind of don't want to let her go.
Speaker 1: I've become very engaged and very happy to excavate. Uh
Speaker 1: the life of a woman who was born in so interesting.
Speaker 1: Just that's got to be a unique inspiration for a
Speaker 1: for a filmmaker, the one you just described. We're not
Speaker 1: only my Angelo, but Marian Anderson were both chasing you.
Speaker 1: It sounds like to to do this documentary. How is
Speaker 1: it different from other documentaries about Marian Anderson? And perhaps
Speaker 1: you can tell us were there any surprises um for you?
Speaker 1: And you were making it well? Again, the concept of
Speaker 1: chasing the story until it chases you is a very
Speaker 1: important concept for me. So I don't go into a
Speaker 1: documentary thinking it will be made like the last one,
Speaker 1: or it will even be made the way current documentaries
Speaker 1: are on television. I think that that person has to
Speaker 1: to how they want their story to be told, and
Speaker 1: if you're very sensitive to that, you will find out why.
Speaker 1: So everything I look at lately is a drone shot,
Speaker 1: and I think that's wonderful. But there were no drones
Speaker 1: when Marian Anderson. There were aerials. Uh. So I make
Speaker 1: sure that I try to stay in the time period.
Speaker 1: But what was most intriguing for me was that I
Speaker 1: went to the University of Pennsylvania the Kids Lack Center,
Speaker 1: where the Marian Anderson collection is housed, and I sent
Speaker 1: myself there. I have a son that lives in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and I just went there for three or four days,
Speaker 1: just looking and trying to feel where this story really
Speaker 1: was and driving around the areas where she lived. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I found was that the
Speaker 1: libraries archives were wonderful and the people there were wonderful.
Speaker 1: And David McKnight said to me, you know, we're just
Speaker 1: putting in audio recordings that we have for her that
Speaker 1: hadn't been uploaded to the archive yet, and I'll share
Speaker 1: the transcripts with you. And these recordings are real to
Speaker 1: real tapes. Now a lot of people don't know what
Speaker 1: those are anymore, but uh, let's say they preceded the
Speaker 1: eight track tape and all the rest of that in
Speaker 1: the cassette and so on. And so I thought, in
Speaker 1: my spirit, this is something new. I need to listen.
Speaker 1: And so the reason the documentary is different is because
Speaker 1: as I listened to thirty four real to reel tapes
Speaker 1: and had them transcribed, I was able to get her voice. Now,
Speaker 1: when she did a documentary and she was alive and
Speaker 1: she talked to you, that was one thing. But for
Speaker 1: a long time, who didn't hear her voice? And these
Speaker 1: tapes were the tapes for her preparing for her autobiography,
Speaker 1: and a lot of what she said was not in
Speaker 1: the autobiographies. And so what I did was I used
Speaker 1: her voice, and then I went to any other places
Speaker 1: where there were recordings of her voice, UM Studs, Turkle,
Speaker 1: George Shirley and so on. And so while she's not
Speaker 1: a true narrator, she does give her opinions on what
Speaker 1: was happening, and so I think that her voice leads
Speaker 1: the way in this documentary. The other thing, therefore, that
Speaker 1: is different about it is every time she talked on
Speaker 1: an audio tape, we had to cover that with something.
Speaker 1: Because television being the visual medium, we had no pictures,
Speaker 1: and we were already heavily relying on archival footage and
Speaker 1: pictures for everything else. So I decided to do re
Speaker 1: enactments when she was speaking. So we shot re enactments
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, and we shot them in Chicago at a
Speaker 1: Landmark house owned by George Manning called The Beast in
Speaker 1: Home and that beast in home had a carriage house.
Speaker 1: It had a carriage from the twenties, and he's from
Speaker 1: the turret to the seller. He kept it in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties condition, and so we used it and the grounds
Speaker 1: around it in the re enactments to go back to
Speaker 1: her childhood, to take her to Europe and so on,
Speaker 1: and so I think that would be not a subtle
Speaker 1: but it's done subtlely, but that would be a big
Speaker 1: difference in the way that the documentary is told. M
Speaker 1: so interesting, well, tell us about her, Where did she
Speaker 1: grow up? And probably most interestingly, how is her great
Speaker 1: gift discovered and how is it nurtured. I'm very happy
Speaker 1: that you asked that question because a lot of people
Speaker 1: see her as nine nine and the Lincoln Memorial, and
Speaker 1: of course by that time she would have been forty two.
Speaker 1: Marian Anderson grew up in Philadelphia on a street that
Speaker 1: was integrated. She went to schools with a large diversity
Speaker 1: of people white um from different uh from different countries
Speaker 1: that were settling at the time in Um in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and Philadelphia was one of those border towns on the
Speaker 1: cusp of the South and the North, and her parents
Speaker 1: moved there as part of that early migration for her
Speaker 1: to have a better life. And before schools were segregated,
Speaker 1: they were integrated, and people don't understand that, and everybody
Speaker 1: just went to school. And so she grew up in
Speaker 1: that environment in Philadelphia, which had the largest black population
Speaker 1: at that time, of people coming and gathering there. And
Speaker 1: I think that um Philadelphia was a place where when
Speaker 1: she grew up with her mother and her father, the
Speaker 1: grandmother was nearby, the grandfather was nearby. The church eventually
Speaker 1: when she moved when she was younger, was literally across
Speaker 1: the street. And the church was social programs, it was music,
Speaker 1: it was education, it was where you would go if
Speaker 1: you were out of work, and it was a community
Speaker 1: that curtured her. And I think she was very well
Speaker 1: nurtured by her father and her aunt. Her mother was solid,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't the person who was in love with music.
Speaker 1: Her aunt was in love with music, and her father
Speaker 1: And what doesn't make the documentary her father took her
Speaker 1: to a local opera when it was in town and
Speaker 1: when she was very young. He died when she was twelve.
Speaker 1: By the time she was twelve, she had heard classics
Speaker 1: what you would call classical European singing because that preceded obviously,
Speaker 1: uh anything like um when Thomas Dorsey came along with gospel,
Speaker 1: the fist jubilee singers. The type of singing the imflagmatis.
Speaker 1: The type of singing that was done in the Black
Speaker 1: Church was high art and it was what people learned,
Speaker 1: and so that environment nurtured her singing. And then Roland Hayes,
Speaker 1: who was an international African descent um son of a
Speaker 1: person who was his His family called hogs. And when
Speaker 1: they called hogs, if you know this in the South,
Speaker 1: you call hogs for a very long time. You learn
Speaker 1: to have a breath that comes up and out and
Speaker 1: goes up and down, and it is what calls hogs.
Speaker 1: And his ability to do that prepared him to be
Speaker 1: able to hold notes and to go up and down
Speaker 1: the scales, and he became a person who would mentor
Speaker 1: her for the rest of her life. And so that
Speaker 1: wonderful question that you have about the nurture, it was
Speaker 1: the family, it was the church, it was the extended community,
Speaker 1: and that is and her aunt and her father, and
Speaker 1: that's where it came from. Self fascinating. Now you mentioned
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine. She's probably most famous for the concert
Speaker 1: she gave outside the Lincoln Memorial in April of that year.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that ninety nine concert, and for those
Speaker 1: who don't know the history, perhaps you could take us
Speaker 1: through what happened and how it came about. Well. By
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, Marian Anderson, out of her own agency,
Speaker 1: had saved money and had one awards, particularly won by
Speaker 1: the rosen Wall Foundation, which was the Jewish organization that
Speaker 1: supported African Americans. The n double a c P. Right
Speaker 1: prior to that was actually in its initial it was
Speaker 1: run by Whites, and Walter White, who was black um
Speaker 1: heard her voice, and James Weldon Johnson, who uh pinned
Speaker 1: with his brother lift every voice and sing. So the
Speaker 1: artistic community was very solid. But Marion Anderson had been
Speaker 1: to Europe. Out of these Rosenwall Foundations helped her to
Speaker 1: go to Germany to study German and so before nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty nine she was seen in the world as a star,
Speaker 1: but not in America. So America was still Jim Crow
Speaker 1: lynching people, whereas she was in the she was in Paris, London, uh.
Speaker 1: The Nordic countries embraced her most of all Sabellious Finland.
Speaker 1: This is where she was traveling when no one white
Speaker 1: or black was traveling that much. She had already had
Speaker 1: given him one year, a hundred and sixty concerts in Europe,
Speaker 1: and when Tuscanini uh said that she was her voice
Speaker 1: was one you could hear only once in a hundred years.
Speaker 1: Saul Rock took another a Jewish man who had lived
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, who was the impresario, the agent of the day.
Speaker 1: He took her work all across the world and really
Speaker 1: helped call a brand as we would call it today
Speaker 1: for her. So by nine nine she's come back to America.
Speaker 1: She has been to the White House and made a
Speaker 1: friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. Howard University and Walter White from
Speaker 1: the n double a c P. Wanted her to continue
Speaker 1: to sing in Washington, DC every year. However, now because
Speaker 1: people had heard about her, there was not enough space
Speaker 1: in almost any given place. The Daughters of the American Revolution,
Speaker 1: the d a R had Constitution Hall, and Constitution Hall
Speaker 1: could seat four thousands. So everybody said, let's take her
Speaker 1: to Constitution Hall, and Constitution Hall said, we have a
Speaker 1: whites only policy, and she cannot sing here. Essentially, and
Speaker 1: as that happened, you can imagine you sang all over
Speaker 1: the world, but in your own country you cannot go
Speaker 1: to Constitution Hall in Washington, d C. The Capital. Well,
Speaker 1: thank god for the coalitions that came together. Howard University,
Speaker 1: one of our first historically black colleges, Mary McLoyd Bethune,
Speaker 1: who was put it in place in education. With the
Speaker 1: Roosevelt administration, they formed a committee, an interracial committee, and
Speaker 1: Saul Hurro joined in on we're going to find a
Speaker 1: place for her to sing. Now, the story gets fuzzy.
Speaker 1: We don't know if it was a person from Howard,
Speaker 1: or if it was the secretary, the Assistant Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Interior, or the chapman or the Secretary of the Interior.
Speaker 1: Uh Ikey's who said let's do it at the Lincoln Memorial.
Speaker 1: But somebody said this, and of course they went to
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt. And as the story goes, Eleanor Roosevelt, who
Speaker 1: loved classical music and had met Marian Anderson through that
Speaker 1: and had had her not only at the White House
Speaker 1: for a private party, but also which was a big
Speaker 1: deal because black people didn't come to the White House
Speaker 1: un to the Roosevelts took this kind of position, and
Speaker 1: then so you now have this confluence of people crossing
Speaker 1: over boundaries to change some of the facade of a
Speaker 1: racial construct in America. And it's through music and it's
Speaker 1: through art, and they got to know one another. So
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt, first Lady Eleanor Roosevelt tells the President, Franklin
Speaker 1: Delano Roosevelt, ken Marian Anderson sing, and he said, I've
Speaker 1: been hearing about her for so many weeks. She can
Speaker 1: sing from the top of the Washington Monument. If she
Speaker 1: wants to shore, you know, just let her sing. And
Speaker 1: once that happened, they had one week to pull everything together.
Speaker 1: And so April ninth, nine nine, to the credit of
Speaker 1: the racism of the d A r her at the time,
Speaker 1: instead of four thousand, she sang for seventy five thousand,
Speaker 1: and as you see all the mics in front of her.
Speaker 1: She went across the world with her voice, and all
Speaker 1: across America, and even a ten year old Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King Jr. Heard her sing and was inspired and wrote
Speaker 1: his first essay that was published after that. It was
Speaker 1: a huge deal. It was you have to go back
Speaker 1: to Jim Crow ninety nine America, people being hung um,
Speaker 1: fighting fights for freedom all around the the country. And
Speaker 1: then to see that this relationship was formed that allowed
Speaker 1: her to sing there and now you have an interracial audience,
Speaker 1: pictures of whites and blacks elbow to elbow. Why watching
Speaker 1: this woman sing and being just taken by her voice.
Speaker 1: It created a pride for African Americans. It created some coalitions,
Speaker 1: some lasting and some that did not for white Americans
Speaker 1: to say, there, you are able to do what we
Speaker 1: thought black people could not do. We thought of them
Speaker 1: as less than human. We thought that they could be
Speaker 1: workaday billies, but not high art. We didn't think that
Speaker 1: they could learn German. My goodness, they can barely speak English.
Speaker 1: All of that was dispelled on April nine nine, such
Speaker 1: an extraordinary moment in history. Seneca has one hundred women
Speaker 1: to hear. We'll be back after the short break. Now,
Speaker 1: that concert also turned Marian Anderson into an international symbol
Speaker 1: of the struggle for civil rights for some of the
Speaker 1: reasons that you already alluded to. What was her role
Speaker 1: in the civil rights movements starting in the forties and onward.
Speaker 1: I think that everybody says, or let's say this. There
Speaker 1: are people who felt that she was a reluctant participant.
Speaker 1: In my research, I don't find that at all. I
Speaker 1: think that one has to understand that nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 1: and nineteen forty and nineteen fifty and nineteen sixty I
Speaker 1: love that you go over those decades were changing decades
Speaker 1: in the face of America. The first thing that happened
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine was after that concert, and with
Speaker 1: the help of Saul here A, she became one of
Speaker 1: the highest paid entertainers in the world at that time.
Speaker 1: What she was making at that time amounted to what
Speaker 1: would be four million dollars today, and for a black
Speaker 1: woman born in that was pretty much unheard of. So
Speaker 1: now she's making a lot of money, and she's now
Speaker 1: doing concerts all over America and all over the world.
Speaker 1: It's breaking down barriers, but there are still doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how famous she is. She can't stay in certain hotels. Uh.
Speaker 1: She she comes to Princeton and that's in you know,
Speaker 1: Princeton and Albert Einstein here is that she's been turned
Speaker 1: down at a hotel and she has to stay with him,
Speaker 1: and he offers her home. Gaps were bridged their relationship
Speaker 1: became a relationship after which um Albert Einstein did a
Speaker 1: lot of work in black colleges after that meeting because
Speaker 1: he understood something. So she was chopping down barriers left
Speaker 1: and right. Also in the forties, after a twenty four
Speaker 1: year on again off again relationship with um Orpheus King Fisher,
Speaker 1: they marry and they try to live in Danbury, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: They try to buy fifty acres. They're turned down. It said,
Speaker 1: if you don't buy a hundred, we won't sell you
Speaker 1: the property because around you, the property loses value because
Speaker 1: you are here. That's what is said to a woman
Speaker 1: who sang for kings and queens. And they sent her
Speaker 1: husband because he was light enough to pass to get
Speaker 1: the property. But they had the agency and the funds,
Speaker 1: and they bought the hundred acres, So I will give
Speaker 1: the forties to those opportunities. In the fifties, the n double,
Speaker 1: a CP that loved her, that nurtured her, said, you
Speaker 1: know what an off of this vertical segregation where you
Speaker 1: think that that's okay, we will boycott you until you
Speaker 1: call for integration at your concerts. You have got to
Speaker 1: start somewhere. Step up, And she did and she said, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're not going to integrate the concert, I won't
Speaker 1: be there. That was the fifties. The fifties was also
Speaker 1: brown versus Board and the implementation of that, the killing
Speaker 1: of Emmett till the the country being torn apart. UH
Speaker 1: in the fifties with UH, with little Rock, and so
Speaker 1: in the fifties in she breaks the barrier at the
Speaker 1: Met and she sings Ulrica and Balo and Mascara, and
Speaker 1: everybody that knows opera will know that I messed that up.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, there you have it. The fifties
Speaker 1: she calls for integrated concerts. She gets on the stage
Speaker 1: at the Met, and by that time she's almost sixty
Speaker 1: years old. She doesn't have the voice for opera anymore,
Speaker 1: but she knows that she must do it, and she
Speaker 1: must be that symbol. She rises to the occasion. The
Speaker 1: sixties is another place. The sixties brings us the Kennedys
Speaker 1: who embrace her. The sixties bring us the March on Washington,
Speaker 1: where she makes it to the podium and sings. And
Speaker 1: it's back to that whole nine thirty nine Lincoln Memorial,
Speaker 1: having christened that in a place for civil rights and
Speaker 1: protests the first time because at that time, in nine,
Speaker 1: you're shoulder to shoulder white blacks. It's put all over
Speaker 1: the world the pictures. Now sixty three, it's a more
Speaker 1: active the march for jobs and freedom, the fight for freedom.
Speaker 1: And she sings there by. Now though she's it's sixty three,
Speaker 1: she's sixty six and her career is beginning to close.
Speaker 1: So thank you for the forties, fifties and sixties. I
Speaker 1: think that would be the places I would land in
Speaker 1: those decades. Amazing history. Lesson Rita's Let's talk about you
Speaker 1: for a minute, and some of your other work. Eve
Speaker 1: won many awards, including an Emmy You wont up Peabody
Speaker 1: for your documentary and Maya Angelou? Why has it been
Speaker 1: important to you as a filmmaker to make films about
Speaker 1: great women like Marian Anderson and Maya Angelou? Thank you
Speaker 1: for that. Mm hmm. Here's what I will say. My
Speaker 1: mother is nine nine years old. My father was born
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen. I grew up in a small town
Speaker 1: outside of Chicago's in all black town. There were two
Speaker 1: white women in that town who were married to black men.
Speaker 1: We did not know as children that they could only
Speaker 1: live there because they would not be accepted. Uh. Our
Speaker 1: schools were not integrated until nineteen sixty eight. I had
Speaker 1: no real knowledge of white people. I had black people.
Speaker 1: I had black stories. And when I went to school,
Speaker 1: I saw none of my stories. I saw. I was erased.
Speaker 1: I was in Dick and Jane for three years. We
Speaker 1: didn't have other books. I wasn't there. I love Pippi Longstocking.
Speaker 1: Then I saw the racism in those pages, and I thought,
Speaker 1: why are our stories not told and why aren't we respected?
Speaker 1: And I loved my community, and so as I began
Speaker 1: to write and become a storyteller, I published a book,
Speaker 1: Meant to Be, and I think it m It's sadly
Speaker 1: came out the year of Um. It was twenty oh two. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: And so I it's kind of autobiographical, but it's a
Speaker 1: novel because I loved my community so much and I
Speaker 1: didn't see them anywhere, And so I kind of actually
Speaker 1: read a Tony Morrison book, The Bluistide, and I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't like the fact that she told our stories.
Speaker 1: And she said that we were poor and had to
Speaker 1: stuff up a towel in in tracks so to keep
Speaker 1: wind out of the window. And I said, when I
Speaker 1: grow up, I'm going to write a book, and you're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to tell whether I'm black
Speaker 1: or white. And then I got up and I started
Speaker 1: to write and tell stories. And the storytelling morphed from
Speaker 1: books to uh two documentaries and two things. And I
Speaker 1: embraced that I could only tell who I was, and
Speaker 1: that not enough people knew. And they should know about
Speaker 1: my community. They should know about the women who could
Speaker 1: say one word or look one way, and you learned
Speaker 1: what was in every book that you'd ever read, just
Speaker 1: by that. They should know about my mother, and they
Speaker 1: should know about Mary and Anderson, and they should know
Speaker 1: about Maya Angelo. And I would like to do documentaries
Speaker 1: on black men. I had a wonderful relationship with my
Speaker 1: father and they. I just needed to have a place
Speaker 1: to say, let us do some of our stories. Yes,
Speaker 1: we can do other stories, and other people can do
Speaker 1: some of our stories, but you don't know me. Let
Speaker 1: me tell my story, and let me have the fun
Speaker 1: and the the and the privilege of researching about my
Speaker 1: own people. Because they were not, by and large in
Speaker 1: the history books. They were not taught to anyone, and
Speaker 1: so most of our history is oral most of it.
Speaker 1: If you don't go listen to the tapes and listen
Speaker 1: to the people and sit in front of them, you
Speaker 1: won't know what happened because what wasn't told was also
Speaker 1: conflated into misrepresentations. So everybody has something that they must do.
Speaker 1: And I feel like the grio by the door in
Speaker 1: Africa to the village that can say seven reigns ago,
Speaker 1: this happened here and that happened there. But I get
Speaker 1: to use a camera, I get to write, and I
Speaker 1: get to research to tell you the part of our story.
Speaker 1: And I feel very blessed to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about who we are. That's wonderful. Now,
Speaker 1: both of these women clearly faced racism, as you've described,
Speaker 1: but their lives were full of challenges as a result,
Speaker 1: full of struggles, but also great, great achievements. What gives
Speaker 1: you hope today as we close this fascinating conversation, what
Speaker 1: gives you hope? Rita? I think, whenever there's an injustice
Speaker 1: and one person is in the room if everything and
Speaker 1: the other person is on the outside of the door
Speaker 1: with some things, the person in the room with everything
Speaker 1: will have to open the door. And let that person in.
Speaker 1: And I have the hope as what happened with Marian Anderson,
Speaker 1: the highest woman of the land opened the door and
Speaker 1: let her in and saw her as a person. May
Speaker 1: Angelo would always say to me, And it wasn't one
Speaker 1: of the sayings I liked the most of hers because
Speaker 1: I didn't understand it. She said, only equals can become friends,
Speaker 1: and I thought, what is she talking about? What I realized,
Speaker 1: until a person sees you as equal, you really can't
Speaker 1: be a friend. You can be a servant, you can
Speaker 1: be an associate, you can be that person down the street.
Speaker 1: I think until I walk into companies and into UH
Speaker 1: opera houses and into grocery stores and into you know,
Speaker 1: corporations and entities and nonprofits and see black men in
Speaker 1: offices and black women and brown people in offices and
Speaker 1: everywhere throughout that that we're standing on precepts and we're
Speaker 1: not doing the work. I'm looking for the people who
Speaker 1: are going to say, put Mary McLoyd Bothoon over education. UH.
Speaker 1: Let Walter White sit down and tell us we really
Speaker 1: have to have an anti lynching bill. Let's um, let's
Speaker 1: have UH Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden
Speaker 1: uh taught to people in the community and forge relayation ships,
Speaker 1: and let's make sure that in colleges and places that
Speaker 1: people aren't just checking boxes. So I'm hopeful that we
Speaker 1: can triumph and we will be a much better and
Speaker 1: stronger America. But I will tell you that Maya Angelo
Speaker 1: used to tell me. She said, you know, racism is
Speaker 1: something that when you wake up in the morning, it's
Speaker 1: seeped through under the door. At night, it's gotten under
Speaker 1: the covers, and you have to scrape it off your skin.
Speaker 1: And you have to do that every day. So the
Speaker 1: more conversations we have about privilege, about bias, and the
Speaker 1: more we listen to one another, there's hope. And I
Speaker 1: believe that, well, that's a wonderful statement, and I'm afraid
Speaker 1: there's too much of that seepage today of racism. So
Speaker 1: I hope we can use the metaphor that you gave
Speaker 1: us of opening the doors and all of us be
Speaker 1: door openers. Thank you, Rita Cockburn. You're a wonderful storyteller,
Speaker 1: and thank you for this walk through history. It's been
Speaker 1: really fascinating and you've made us so much smarter about
Speaker 1: the great Marian Anderson. Thank you for having me, Milan.
Speaker 1: I thank you for what you do. You are opening
Speaker 1: doors with your program and I really appreciate that and
Speaker 1: and respect you for it and much success. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That was really inspiring. What a great opportunity to look
Speaker 1: back and to learn. Here are three things I took
Speaker 1: from that conversation. First, we should remember Marian Anderson for
Speaker 1: so many things, for her Lincoln Memorial Concert, for being
Speaker 1: the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera,
Speaker 1: and for using her amazing voice throughout the decade to
Speaker 1: fight free equality. Second, know that when people from different
Speaker 1: backgrounds unite or a common cause, great things can happen.
Speaker 1: Rida Coburn tells us that the Lincoln Memorial Concert took
Speaker 1: place because the confluence of people crossed over boundaries to
Speaker 1: challenge racism. Finally, let's make sure that all voices are
Speaker 1: being heard. Rida Coburn makes films about women like Marion
Speaker 1: Anderson and Maya Angelou because the history of Black Americans
Speaker 1: has been largely overlooked for so long. She asked herself,
Speaker 1: why are our stories not being told? You can learn
Speaker 1: more about Marion Anderson the whole world in her hands
Speaker 1: By going to PBS dot org, you'll find viewing times
Speaker 1: for local station, and you can even watch the documentary online.
Speaker 1: Tune in next week to hear about our next featured
Speaker 1: woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's Women to Hear.
Speaker 1: Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between
Speaker 1: the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with
Speaker 1: support from founding partner PNG. Have a great Day.