Eleanor Roosevelt protested segregation laws in Birmingham, Alabama

Eleanor resigned her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in 1939 and made arrangements to hold the concert at the nearby Lincoln Memorial; the event turned into a massive outdoor celebration attended by 75,000 people. Marian Anderson was an African American opera singer who was denied permission to perform in Constitution Hall. When municipal authorities in Alabama insisted that attendees at a public meeting be seated according to race on another occasion, Eleanor brought a foldable chair to every meeting and carefully positioned it in the middle aisle.

When he arrived, Roosevelt sat next to an African American friend, disobeying the area that was supposed to be for white people exclusively. Roosevelt requested a ruler after learning that Birmingham's segregationist laws forbade whites and Blacks from sitting together at public events. Then she said, "Now measure the distance between this chair and that one." Roosevelt positioned her chair evenly spaced between the white and Black attendance' sections after assessing the chasm between them. One witness said, "They were frightened to take her into custody." Her advocacy for the rights of African Americans, young people, and the impoverished helped to reintegrate previously excluded groups into politics.