Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the 20th century. She became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. In 1939, she was refused permission to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed an open-air concert on Easter Sunday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to a crowd of over 75,000 and a radio audience of millions.