Production. Launching of the SS Booker T. Washington. The SS Booker T. Washington, first Liberty Ship named for a Negro is shown at the fitting-out pier a short time after it was launched at the California Shipbuilding Corporation's yards. Marian Anderson, celebrated contralto, christened the ship which was named for the noted Negro educator

Anderson was an important figure in the struggle for African American artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. In 1939, during the period of racial segregation, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. The incident placed Anderson in the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the Lincoln Memorial steps in the capital. The event was featured in a documentary film, Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert. She sang before an integrated crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions.