Marian Anderson and the Sound of Freedom

Raymond Arsenault is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History emeritus, at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, where he  taught from 1980.to 2020  A specialist in the political, social, environmental, and civil rights history of the American South, he has also taught at the University of Minnesota, Brandeis University, the University of Chicago, the Florida State University Study Abroad Center in London, and the Universite d’Angers, in France, where he was a Fulbright Lecturer in 1984-85.  A native of Cape Cod, he was educated at Princeton University and Brandeis University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1981. 

One of the nation’s leading civil rights historians, he is the author or editor of twelve books, including several highly acclaimed and prize-winning studies: Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (2006; abridged ed. 2011); The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America (2009); Arthur Ashe, A Life (2018); and John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community (2024). Freedom Riders, published by Oxford University Press as part of the Pivotal Moments in American History series, was named a New York Times Editor’s Choice, selected as one of the Washington Post BookWorld’s Best Books of the Year, and awarded the 2007 Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Prize of the Southern Historical Association, as the most important book published in the field of Southern history in 2006. It also served as the basis for the director Stanley Nelson’s celebrated 2011 American Experience documentary film Freedom Riders, which won three Emmys for writing, editing, and documentary excellence, and a 2012 George Peabody Award. The Sound of Freedom and its author were featured in a 2022 American Masters (WNET) documentary directed by Rita Coburn, Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands. In 2012, the Florida Historical Society presented Arsenault with the Dorothy Dodd Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2019 the Florida Humanities Council honored him with its Lifetime Achievement in Writing Award.  

A long-time community activist and public historian, Arsenault has consulted for a number of national and regional historical museums and organizations, including the Carter G. Woodson African-American History of Florida Museum; the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and National Museum of African American History and Culture; the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; the Rosa Parks Museum; the Freedom Rides Museum; the National Civil Rights Museum; and the National Park Service. From 1998 to 2000, he served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, and as a member of the Florida ACLU Board of Directors for over 35 years. From 2013 to 2016 he was the chairman of the Organization of American Historians’ Committee on Academic Freedom. During his long career, he has been honored with numerous civil rights, human rights, and social justice awards, including the 2003 Nelson Poynter Civil Liberties Award, the 2011 Hillsborough County Human Rights Council’s Human Rights Award, and the 2012 Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award given by the St. Petersburg branch of the National Council of Negro Women. His most recent book, John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community, published by Yale University Press as part of its new Black Lives Series, was awarded the Gold Medal for General Nonfiction by the Florida Book Awards.