It's March 1, 1940. In Berlin, Hitler is instructing army generals to finalize plans to invade Denmark and Norway.
At the Lincoln Theater at 1215 U Street in Washington, DC, manager Rufus Byars acknowledges picketers denouncing his feature film, Gone With the Wind (1939).
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had acclaimed Gone With The Wind with ten Oscars the previous evening.
The picketers stated, wrote columnist Ralph Matthews four days later in the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, that Gone With the Wind "allegedly pictured slavery as a noble institution in which the slaves were happy and content."
The picketing followed by eleven months the command performance of contralto Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, three miles away. An African-American, Anderson had been previously barred from performing at Constitution Hall on account of her race.
Photo: Scurlock Studios
Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial, Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939. A crowd of seventy five thousand bore witness.
