Stevie Wonder on Saturday knelt before a packed New York festival in a protest for peace as he led stars and politicians in pressing for sustained aid to eliminate the world’s worst poverty.
On a balmy late summer night, thousands converged on Central Park for the live-broadcast Global Citizen Festival, which hands out tickets for free to fans who take actions such as petitioning their governments to support development assistance.
With US President Donald Trump proposing sweeping aid cuts, the concert had set a goal of building political momentum in the world’s largest donor nation.
Wonder took the stage and knelt, emulating a gesture popularized by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick during the national anthem to denounce racial injustice. Trump on Friday angrily denounced such protests, using profanity to demand that teams fire the athletes.
“Tonight, I’m taking a knee for America,” the blind soul legend said as took to the ground, his son Kwame Morris clutching his arm.
Wonder also voiced worry over the increasingly personal venom between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“We could lose the ultimate video game — of life — losing sight that weapons are real, and rhetoric is dangerous, whether it be from a superpower in North America or a superpower in North Korea,” Wonder said.
Wonder jammed through more than an hour of his best-loved songs before turning his ever-powerful belting voice to the 1985 charity singalong We Are the World as well as Imagine, the peace anthem by John Lennon, who was assassinated a short stroll away.
The 67-year-old Wonder closed by bringing up a visibly star-struck Pharrell Williams, singing together a funk-heavy take of Get Lucky, which Williams co-wrote for Daft Punk, as well as the younger artist’s ode to optimism Happy.
The diverse but heavy-hitting lineup also featured chart-topping electronic duo The Chainsmokers, rising soul star Andra Day, folk rockers The Lumineers and young Canadian pop songwriter Alessia Cara — who, in a feat of organization, also performed on Saturday in Toronto at the Invictus Games for wounded soldiers and veterans.
Punk rock greats Green Day injected politics as well, with frontman Billie Joe Armstrong weaving Trump into the lyrics of American Idiot, the band’s high-octane 2004 indictment of US media culture.
Green Day turned down the volume for a second set of Wake Me Up When September Ends and Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life), set to a slideshow from UNICEF to show the still severe human impact of AIDS.
French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the festival by video, promising to help raise more than US$1 billion for the Global Partnership for Education before a Feb. 8 conference in Senegal.
The partnership has a goal of US$3.1 billion in funding for next year through 2020, of which US$2 billion has already been committed.
Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Ulla Tornaes told the festival that her government would next year double to US$110 million its international funding for women’s sexual and reproductive health.
“When some countries stop fighting for women’s rights, we intensify ours,” she said to applause.
US Representative Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican, said that Global Citizen had triggered about 400,000 calls to the US Congress to preserve aid — and voiced hope the pressure would work.
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