Some of Broadway’s top performers sang and danced their hearts out in Times Square for the fifth annual “Broadway Celebrates Juneteenth” concert Thursday.
Performances included musical numbers from “Chicago,” “Moulin Rouge,” “The Wiz” and “Hell’s Kitchen.”
Gracing the stage were artists like Blue Allen from “MJ the Musical,” Cicily Daniels from “The Wiz,” and Kecia Lewis from “Hell’s Kitchen.”
The free concert commemorates Juneteenth, now a federal holiday that celebrates the emancipation of African Americans once enslaved in the United States.
“Really celebrating the holiday of Juneteenth,” said Kendra Whitlock Ingram, Broadway League board member and co-executive producer of Broadway Celebrates Juneteenth. “And it’s a great opportunity for us to also showcase the Black excellence of artists throughout our Broadway community.”
Event hosts Jon Michael Hill and Kara Young both star in Broadway’s “Purpose,” a play about the complexities of a Black American family of civil rights leaders, pastors and congressmen.
“His family is sort of woven into the tapestry of Black American life and politics,” Hill said.
“There’s a line that Aziza says to Solomon Jasper who’s a part of the important legacy of civil rights and she says I live free in a world you helped to make,” said Young.
The event’s honoree was 79-year-old actor André De Shields, who received the Legacy Award. When asked who in his life he was thinking about upon receiving the award, De Shields said he was thinking about his parents.
“They said, ‘Well, what are you going to be when you grow up?’ and I said, ‘I’m going to be a star,’” said De Shields.
With a career spanning 55 years, many know De Shields for his roles in Broadway productions such as “The Wiz,” “Ain’t Misbehavin,’” “Play On!” and “The Full Monty.”
Also an educator and activist, De Shields was declared the triple crown winner of the 2019 awards season, after receiving a Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Grammy Award for his role as Hermes in “Hadestown.”
But the focus of De Shields’ acceptance speech was not his accolades. It was about the importance of Juneteenth, especially in this moment in time.
“We have to go all the way back to Dr. Martin Luther King who said I have a dream and understand that in some ways that dream has become a nightmare, particularly under the current administration,” De Shields said. “So although we’ve made a lot of progress, there’s a lot more that we have to do.”
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, stems from June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the freedom of enslaved people following the end of the Civil War. This announcement came more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
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