Dselected documentocument of the Month: February  Eleanor
Roosevelt Resigns from the DAR  In February 1939, Howard
University, a black educational institution in Washington DC,
invited Marian Anderson, an internationally famous black
contralto singer to give a concert. Officials at the University
expected a large crowd to turn out for the concert and were
concerned that their auditorium would be too small. They asked
the Washington Headquartered Daughters of the American
Revolution (DAR) if they could use their auditorium,
Constitution Hall. The DAR refused, explaining that local
conditions and custom did not favor such a move. They had
adopted a “black exclusion” rule several years earlier after
they had allowed a black tenor Roland Hayes to perform in the
Hall. He had refused to sing in a segregated a hall and the DAR
responded with opening seating. But those who attended that
concert complained about the mixed seating so loudly that the
DAR implemented their exclusion rule.  Protest over Ms.
Anderson’s exc