Stars shine light on racism

Last night’s Shining a Light 2015 concert held in Los Angeles, CA in the United States started at 8pm at the Shrine Auditorium. The concert focused on promoting unity and social progress within the realm of racial equality. This sold out concert, featured a start studded set list, ranging from Sting to Pharrell Williams, Ed Sheeran to Bruce Springsteen, or Sia to Zac Brown Band.

The concert, not only wide in its music genres, was wide in styles of entertainment. As expected, the two hour show was filled with numerous song performances and duos, with the additional mix of poetry, videos and speeches. These moving performances included Springsteen, Legend and Tom Morello performing American Skin (41 Shots), Jill Scott singing Strange Fruit and Big Sean and Legend closing with One Man Can Change the World . These performances were further intermingled with appearances by other stars, including Smokey Robinson, George Lopez, featuring a comedic bit, and Nicki Minaj, who movingly recited a Maya Angelou poem, Still I Rise.

The additional video features showed members of the set list travelling to sites of racial inequality and violence, including Charleston S.C., where nine African-American congregants attending a church prayer meeting were murdered by a young white man; Baltimore, where a black man, Freddie Gray, died after injuries suffered while in police custody; and Ferguson, Mo, where the killing of a young black man, Michael Brown, by a white police officer, led to civic unrest, protests and calls for police and criminal justice reform.

Morgan Freeman urged and moved the crowd to take action with his speech:

“Throughout this nation’s history, from the brutal days of slavery to the long march to civil rights until today, music has been there to help us cross that bloody river to the other side. As too many tragic headlines and news stories make painfully clear, music alone cannot heal the wounds so many of us in this great nation still feel, wounds caused by racism and injustice. Tonight, as we mourn the loss of life in Paris, let us rededicate ourselves to helping erase hate and to creating an American where we can all move up together toward justice, community, love, brotherhood, sisterhood and freedom.”

This inspiring cumulative effort by the greats of the music business for progress in racial equality will be aired on A&E Networks as a two hour special on 20 November, 2015. All the proceeds from ticket sales will go to the Fund for Progress on Race in America powered by the United Way Worldwide.

Nancy Dubuc, President & CEO of A+E Networks said. "By shining a light on the uncomfortable truth that racial inequity and bias still impact our society, we are looking to inspire people to go beyond short-lived, symbolic gestures."

Cassie Rodgers