What's at stake for American culture with Trump's Kennedy Center changes
Interim director defends president's changes to national arts centre, even as artists continue to pull out
In her two decades as a human rights lawyer, working on issues in more than 25 countries, Hadar Harris says she is alarmed by what she's witnessing on U.S. soil and worried that some Americans may not be paying close enough attention.
"I would say that this is a very dangerous moment," Harris said, sitting at a table in a small workshare office in downtown Washington, where she is the managing director of the Washington office of PEN America, an organization that promotes literary freedoms and free expression.
Her concern is focused, in part, on the major changes happening at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts under the Trump administration.
Named after the former U.S. President, the Kennedy Center, as it's known, serves as a national arts centre that's meant to reflect the pulse of American culture. It's a space that hosts a wide range of artists, from well known performers to more independent productions. And while it may seem unusual to raise awareness about what some may see as just another concert hall, there's concern that this about much more than just a calendar of arts events.
"You have a president who is seeking to consolidate power … really trampling on key constitutional principles including freedom of expression and freedom of speech," Harris explained.
"So those of us who have kind of seen this before … can see exactly what's happening," she said, warning that when a political leader tries to "capture culture" it's something she says is typical of an authoritarian. "Right by the playbook."
Trump's 'golden age' in arts and culture
Not long after returning to the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed significant changes at the Kennedy Center.
"I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture," Trump said on his Truth Social media platform in early February.
"At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN," he wrote.
While all of this is within his scope of power, Trump took the unusual move of installing himself as chairman of the board. He also lashed out about some of the programming at the Kennedy Center, despite saying he'd never actually attended a show at the venue himself.
"We don't need woke at the Kennedy Center," Trump told reporters on Airforce One while travelling to the Superbowl in February.
"We don't need some of the shows that are a disgrace that they were even put on."
Ric Grenell, who Trump selected to serve as interim executive director of the Kennedy Center, has shed a little light on what the president wants to see on stage.
He told an audience at a conservative political conference "we want to make art great again."
When pushed for specifics about how they would do that, Grenell suggested more religious programming and cited plans for a "big huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas."
Church pulls out in protest
While Trump's goal may be to add certain types of religious programming, at least one prominent church is pulling out in protest.
"We don't support this, we don't believe that this is right," said Howard-John Wesley, the senior pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church, in Alexandria, Va.
For the past five years, members of his congregation have been invited to perform at the Kennedy Center. Their elaborate Christmas concert requires nine months of preparation and costs the church about $250,000.
After the changes, church leadership decided to cancel and do the show on their own terms. Wesley says they feared they would end up being cancelled anyway.
"Not for anything other than we are a pro diversity, pro inclusionary church that was open, and saying that we don't believe this is the direction that God wants to take our nation."
Trump has made it extremely clear that he doesn't support initiatives aimed at promoting diversity, inclusion or equity, known as DEI. He's signed a series of executive orders designed to root out and roll back DEI initiatives within education programs in the federal government, while also pushing the private sector to adopt similar changes.
For Wesley, this is a non-starter. The Alfred Street Church sits on a plot of land purchased 222 years ago by freed and enslaved African Americans. The congregation is now 12,000 members strong and growing.
"We wouldn't be in the history of the lineage of the Black church and the civil rights movement, and all the great men and women who fought for our civil rights, to just go along with something we believe is taking us tremendously backwards as a nation," he said.
Performer cancellations and protests
There's also a growing list of performers distancing themselves from the Kennedy Center.
Award-winning television producer Shonda Rhimes resigned from the board in the wake of the changes. Actor Issa Rae, star of the TV show Insecure, cancelled an appearance, and musician Ben Folds quit as an artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), which holds performances at the centre.
Earlier this week, organizers of the blockbuster musical Hamilton announced that a run of shows would no longer take place at the venue next year.
The show's star and co-creator Lin Manuel Miranda told The New York Times that "the Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we're not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center."
In response to the Hamilton announcement, Grenell posted on social media Wednesday that the move was "a publicity stunt that will backfire."
"The arts are for everyone — not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with," he wrote. "The American public needs to know that Lin Manuel is intolerant of people who don't agree with him politically."
'One of those defining moments'
Best-selling Canadian author Louise Penny was set to launch her new book, The Black Wolf, on stage at the Kennedy Center, but she cancelled those plans in mid-February.
In a recent Facebook post, she announced she wouldn't tour in the U.S. and would hold the book launch in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre instead.
"I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but given the ongoing threat of an unprovoked trade war against Canada by the US president, I do not feel I can enter the United States," she wrote, adding she hoped her U.S. fans would come to the Canadian events.
She said cancelling the Kennedy Center launch was an easy decision for her.
"I think it's one of those defining moments for us as individuals," she told CBC News during an interview from her home in Knowlton, Que.
Penny views the Kennedy Center changes as an attempt by the Trump administration to stifle artists and intellectuals who may disagree with the president.
"What's the first thing that the tyrants do when they take over?" Penny asked. "They shut down dissent."