President Joe Biden fought back tears while reciting the lyrics to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at a ceremony honoring recipients of the National Medal of the Arts and National Medal of the Humanities on Monday.
The president received multiple standing ovations while giving the keynote address to recipients of the prestigious awards from the last two years—which included performers Idina Menzel, Missy Elliott, and Selena, filmmakers Spike Lee, Ken Burns, and Steven Spielberg, and actresses Eva Longoria and Queen Latifah.
But during his remarks, Biden spoke about another recipient of the medal—Marian Anderson, the Black contralto opera singer who became a civil rights icon.
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In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall. Instead, then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped organize a massive outdoor concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
Biden said that a young Martin Luther King Jr. was inspired by that performance. “He heard the voice of Marian Anderson standing in the light of the Lincoln Memorial, from the shadow of Jim Crow and singing ‘my country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,’” the president said before becoming visibly emotional, getting choked up and stopping briefly on the word “liberty.”
The crowd burst out in applause as the president collected himself and carried on. “Her performance is described as the concert that sparked the Civil Rights Movement,” he added.
King later invited Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial for a second time—during his landmark 1963 March on Washington, where she sang the spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
“My fellow Americans, today we honor that legacy,” Biden said. “We remember the power in all your hands.”
