Chris Pierce Confounded Critics With A Boffo Performance At Trump's Commandeered Kennedy Center

Chris Pierce had a much better reception at the Kennedy Center than JD Vance did

-by Denise Sullivan

When Chris Pierce performs his somber take on “Southern Man” on Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young, he brings personal experience to the line about crosses burning fast.

Pierce was five-years-old when locals burned a cross on the front lawn of his family home in Pasadena, California. His parents, a mixed race couple, stayed in their residence, despite the hate crime and stood up to racism. 

It was in that same spirit Pierce held his date at the Kennedy Center on March 12, in the face of Trump installing himself as the cultural institution’s leader. Trump's scheduled to meet with the board on Monday to see how he can influence its annual lifetime achievement honorees. With such a small pool of honors-worthy Trump loyalists from which to choose,  it’s hard to imagine who they would be: Kid Rock? Ted Nugent? Mike Love? We shudder to think...

“Since 1978, the Kennedy Center has named honorees to be recognized each year at a star-studded televised gala without interference from the White House. The center has honored a broad spectrum of artists and performers, including Lucille Ball, Dolly Parton, Clint Eastwood, Fred Astaire and the Grateful Dead.” 

The story linked from the New York Times provides an overview of the situation with the Center during the first Trump administration and the current serious shenanigans. “Trump has vowed to rid the center of 'woke' influences, drag shows and 'anti-American propaganda.'”

With that threat issued, Chris Pierce may go down in history as the last completely awake solo protest singer to perform on the Kennedy Center’s stage.

At the top of his set, Pierce quoted the words of the center’s namesake:

“If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.”

Kennedy delivered those lines as part of his eulogy for Robert Frost, the woke poet who spoke the 1961 inauguration. Hand in hand with JFK, Pierce quoted James Baldwin:

“I love America, which is why I deserve the right to criticize her perpetually,” he said, by way of introducing his song about injustice and complacency,  'American Silence.'”

Pierce introduced “It’s Been Burning For Awhile” by referencing last week's removal of the Black Lives Matter street mural in D.C. His unfiltered originals, including “Sound All The Bells” also conjured cross burning and other violent times in his life, like being shot at and arrested for being Black. His sustained vocals sometimes echo the screeches and howls of someone who can’t breathe because there’s a boot on his neck. 

A new song, “Madonna of the San Joaquin” is the story of a woman, “picking your fruit, scrubbing your floor” running from la migra. Another new song, “You Do Not Weep Alone,” is about children who are the victims of the horrors of war, the targets of bombs. “Chain Gang Fourth of July,” (against mass incarceration) and “Tulsa Town” (about the race massacre of 1921) are from Pierce's  2021 album, American Silence, devoted to songs of injustice and inequality. The DEI police would hate it. He closed his set with “The Bridge of John” a remembrance of Congressman John Lewis.

Pierce’s decision to go ahead and sing against fascism in Washington, in light of current circumstances, was not lost on those who appreciate musical protest and topical songs in the tradition of Woody Guthrie. So it's really hard to get why anyone would have beef with his stance. And yet, he reported on social media that his timelines and inbox were crawling with trolls.

“Along with public support, I’ve received direct messages of vitriol, verbal abuse, and disrespect on social media and beyond. It’s disheartening that much of the vitriol is from folks whom I consider to be in alignment with, in the unfinished struggle for justice,” he wrote on Instagram.

Pierce did not censor his set at the Kennedy Center or in any way yield to white supremacy; It’s clear which side he’s on: He told Rolling Stone he understands why there were those who decided to bow out in the face of the center’s new “chairman,” but his decision to keep playing is rooted in a conviction that music can change hearts and minds.

”I’m not going to sit home and sulk. I’m going to get out and do what I can do and raise my voice.” 

The movement toward a country restoring itself to some form of sanity obviously requires not only leaders and a broad based coalition of voices, but it needs art; it needs music. 

“My art is my resistance,” Pierce wrote on his social media.  “My songs are unshakeable even when only the faintest of notes ring through and sing truth to power.” 

Pierce's earnings from the gig were donated to the United Fram Workers Foundation and to The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ and questioning youth.

Watch: Chris Pierce’s entire set from the Kennedy Center, March 12, 2025

ADDENDUM: It was in that same spirit that Pierce held his date at the Kennedy Center on March 12, in the face of Trump installing himself as the cultural institution’s leader (T met with the board on Monday to discuss changes and his influence on the annual lifetime achievement honorees, though there is such a small pool of worthy artists loyal to Trump and his henchmen, it’s hard to imagine who they would be).