White House celebrates civil rights movement, which was ‘sustained by music’
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Crippling winter weather on the East Coast may have shut down the federal government, but it certainly couldn’t stop Bob Dylan, Morgan Freeman and many other artists from acknowledging the struggles of the civil rights movement in a White House now home to an African American family.
Heavy snowfall in the nation’s capital prompted the White House to move up by a day an event that had been scheduled for Wednesday: The East Room was filled Tuesday night for the fifth in a series of performances celebrating American music, with this one focused on the civil rights movement.
Faces in the crowd included Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, White House senior advisor David Axelrod, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Reps. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) and John Conyers Jr., NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, White House Budget Director Peter R. Orszag, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. The event began shortly after 8 p.m., with the Howard University Choir singing the gospel hymn ‘Lord (I Done Done What You Told Me to Do).’
Afterward, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, entered the room, immediately followed by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, pictured at left. The crowd erupted in sustained applause.
Standing at a small lectern, the president, pictured above, thanked the crowd for ‘braving the storm.’ He said he was ‘thrilled’ at the assemblage of artists: Joan Baez, Natalie Cole, Jennifer Hudson and John Mellencamp, among others. He spoke of how the civil rights movement had been ‘sustained by music.’
‘It’s easy to sing when times are good,’ the president said. ‘It’s hard to sign when times are rough.’
Obama mentioned the 1963 March on Washington and specifically cited the efforts of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was not in attendance. The president acknowledged that Lewis’ work for freedom had ‘made it possible for me to be here tonight.’
After Obama’s speech, actor Morgan Freeman introduced gospel singer Yolanda Adams, who performed a knockout rendition of Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Is Gonna Come.’
The rest of the night was left to the celebrants and the artists, as the media were ushered out of the room. The show, as they say, will go on for the rest of us at a later date on PBS, which taped the event.
-- Mark Silva