Something happened at a major event on the National Mall that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. Artists were invited to perform at what was billed as a nonpartisan celebration of American culture. The lineup was extraordinary — Martina McBride, The Commodores, Young MC, Morris Day and The Time.
It was a bait and switch. The event had been quietly engineered with a political agenda, and the artists had been misled about what they were walking into. One by one, they walked off.
The Commodores put it best: “Our music has always been our voice and we choose not to publicly affiliate with any single political party.”
That moment crystallized something I’ve believed for a long time. Artists are not props. They are not decorations for someone else’s agenda. They are the conscience of the culture — and when someone tries to use them as tools, walking away is the most powerful thing an artist can do.
That’s why I started Act Out Act Up.
This isn’t a political movement. It’s an arts movement. We are not left. We are not right. We stand for three things: holding the line when freedom is threatened, protecting the stage as common ground that belongs to everyone, and reminding people that storytelling is what we all share, regardless of anything else that divides us.
The arts are not a luxury. They are not a footnote. They ARE the American story.
Read the full mission and join the movement at TommyErb.com/act-out-act-up.
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