Religious leaders call for separation of church and state at Rise Up, Sing Out
Viewers who tuned in for last Sunday’s “Rise Up, Sing Out” in person or by livestream may have been left wanting if they expected two hours of famous singers singing songs on freedom. Few actually sang.
What they did, as viewed by spectators in New York’s Town Hall and watch parties in every state, was to speak, uncensored, about the undemocratic disaster that is today’s America.
They called out the names of news anchors, talk-show hosts and print journalists who lost their jobs after their companies were sued or threatened by the Trump administration over comments and stories he deemed critical of him.
“Trump posted (that) my former employer (MSNBC) did his bidding when they fired me,” said commentator Joy Reid, also noting, “Jeff Bezos ripped ‘Democracy dies in darkness’ off the masthead of The Washington Post” after the billionaire bought the paper.
Speakers called out the ICE raids and killings of two innocent protesters, and the thousands of toddlers and babies in ICE detention. Librarians called out book bans. LGBT advocates called out the recent murders of transgender people and the removal of a gay Pride flag from a monument to gay rights history - during Gay Pride Month.
A Jewish rabbi, a Muslim leader and a Christian pastor called out the mixing of church and state, saying the freedom to practice one’s religion is as essential as the freedom from religion in government.
They could probably speak without fear of sanction because their event was aired on C-Span - a nonprofit cable organization with no government funding. Sponsored by Jane Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment, the event’s organizers included the ACLU, Indivisible and the No Kings movement.
“They come for one of us, by God, they come for all of us,” said Fonda, a longtime activist for peace and civil rights whose father, actor Henry Fonda, launched the committee she now heads. He formed it in 1947, when members of the Hollywood film industry were being called to testify before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Now it’s the activities of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and Supreme Court that are acting UnAmerican, Fonda said.
The New York Town Hall had special significance as a place to call for the return of people’s rights. It was there that suffragists more than 100 years ago launched their movement for women’s right to vote.
Over in D.C. Sunday evening, Trump was observing his 80th birthday - and America’s upcoming 250th - with intense displays of machismo: UFC “cage fights” on the White House South Lawn and military jets including a B-1 bomber overhead. One of the cage fighters was heard declaring Michelle Obama is a man.
But the worst part, according to people interviewed by USA Today, was that the president doesn’t even like celebrating his birthdays; he was making money off the deal. In March, Trump’s trust bought $15,000 to $50,000 worth of stock in UFC’s parent company, according to Jeffrey Engel, the founding director of Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History. Engel also noted the monetary value of ads in the cage from Crypto.com and other multinational corporations.
As that played out, Rise Up, Sing Out was reviving memories of musical events from the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s that raised money to fight poverty here and abroad. Those included the 1968 Hands Across America, the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, the 1985 Live Aid against famine in Ethiopia, and multiple Farm Aids to benefit farmers facing foreclosures. It was afar cry from what Trump’s birthday celebration was used for.
So it’s doubly significant that on the same night, actor Robert DeNiro was calling out Trump’s recent comment that he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation, “or about anyone. I think about one thing — we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Well, apparently he thinks about a few other things: Armed warfare and using the presidency to get richer.
Robert DeNiro at NY Town Hall
Looking back on the idealism of the ‘60s and ‘70s, you wonder what brought us to this point, where a public government celebration features men fighting each other, and others shouting for America First.
Maybe singer Bette Midler was thinking of that when she urged the New York audience to “Be Louder, be wilder, speak out!” But judging from what looked like the average age inside New York’s Town Hall, that was unlikely. And I say this as a member of that generation. I’ve noticed the same age disparity at No Kings and other anti-Trump protests. I was also surprised not to find a single Rise Up, Shout Out watch party in the Des Moines Metro. The closest was Indianola.
The energy on display in New York Sunday for a freer and juster America were certainly contagious - but mostly, I suspect, to those of us who’ve seen first-hand the creep of autocracy and the remnants of segregation, and know what’s at stake. Those speakers lived through the civil rights, women’s rights, anti-war and anti-colonial movements. They offered powerful testimonials against authoritarianism.
As DeNiro put it, “I can’t love a country that’s led by a racist, misogynist xenophobic tyrant. I can’t love a country that starts stupid inhumane wars… that takes healthcare away from millions of people and uses that money to send masked militia” into cities and homes.
Democratic operatives and other opponents of the Trump administration have their work cut out before the Midterms. They’ll need to persuade younger people in particular about things like slavery, that we’re not even allowed to teach in schools and colleges anymore. Or about how far America has advanced in 250 years, and how far back it risks sliding in the next half century.
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