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[[caption]] Walker, Toote, Pierce, Johnson, Jones, Sharpe, Alexander, Lopez, Banks, Bourne, Mitchell, McDougald, Johnson, Lopez, Drew [[/caption]]

[[box]] "...Our concert halls will be immeasurable poorer for her departure, but we may hope that our life as people will continue to be enriched by her undiminished service."
—Paul Hume, The Washington Post and Times Herald [[/box]]

On October 24, 1964, when Marian Anderson walked with her own quiet majesty onto the stage of Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., for her farewell concert there, the huge audience in the sold-out auditorium surged to its feet in tribute to one of the great artists and great individuals of our time. When Miss Anderson's scheduled program that evening had ended, the audience rose again and again through the encores to applaud her. As one newspaper reported, "Flowers and flash bulbs mingled with shouts and tears."

The nearly four thousand persons present on this memorable occasion took with them into the night a particular gift—one that Miss Anderson has been imparting to millions around the world for more than thirty years—a specially human affirmation and comfort as well as a unique artictic [[artistic]] experience.

More than that of any other artist of our experience in this century, the art of Marian Anderson is indivisibly bound up with her grandeur as a human being. As Paul Hume said in The Washington Post of this Constitution Hall concert, "Few musicians have given so much to so many for the simple reason that few great musicians have such personal greatness."

That Miss Anderson has become a symbol of her race and of America—at home and abroad—is undeniable. And yet it is in a sense a paradox that the crushing weight of public acclamation and attention should have fallen on one so essentially unassuming and truly modest.

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