John Legend is a rare breed in these times: a chart-topping artist (his single, "All of Me," hit No. 1 this spring) who doesn't hesitate to stand up for his political values. In 2010, he recorded a covers album of politically-charged soul songs with The Roots titled Wake Up!, and he recently recorded "Glory," a song with Common that's featured in the forthcoming Martin Luther King, Jr., biopic, Selma.
This month, he wrote an op-ed in Billboard that focused on Ferguson, Eric Garner and flaws in the American justice system.
"Slavery ended 150 years ago," he wrote. "The most egregious elements of Jim Crow were deemed illegal 50 years ago. But the problems of structural racism are old and ongoing. We still have a huge wealth gap rooted in decades of job, wage and housing discrimination. Voting restrictions that disproportionately affect the poor, minorities and youth are in place and growing. A persistent gap between black and white student achievement points to an education system that fails to provide a ladder of opportunity for everyone.
"African-American communities are being crushed by a criminal justice system that over-polices us, over-arrests us, over-incarcerates us and disproportionately takes the lives of our unarmed youth because of the simple fact that our skin, our blackness, conjures the myth of a hyper-violent negro."
Legend also called out his fellow artists who do not use social media as a tool to shed light on political issues, and compared the present commander in chief to one during King's years.
"Obama recently told the young activists gathered in the Oval Office to 'think big, but go gradual,'" Legend wrote. "His words reminded me of President Lyndon B. Johnson's reluctance to tackle voting rights, as depicted in Selma. Despite Johnson's qualms, civil rights activists refused to wait for a more convenient political time. They took to the streets and used grass-roots organization and the moral force of their argument to create better conditions so the legislation could pass. We can't wait for gradual and incremental change. Our government is a democracy, by the people and for the people. It is time for the people to wake up, stand up and demand change."
Selma is in theaters on Christmas Day.
