Bruce Springsteen became the latest recipient of the Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award at the Tribeca Festival on Saturday.
Despite his humility, the legendary musician did not feel he deserved the honor given to those who used storytelling and the arts to bring about change in their communities.
“I don’t really consider myself an activist,” he said while speaking with Bono as part of the award ceremony. “I’m a little embarrassed to be getting this award tonight, because I feel at best I’m a concerned citizen. And what do I do? Sing my songs, say some things and hope for the best, help people a little here and a little there. There are a lot of people who do a lot more than I do.”
Fortunately, fellow musician and activist Bono, who said he was there to present the award “as a fan pretending to be a friend,” and Robert De Niro, the co-founder of Tribeca, enthusiastically made their case for why Springsteen should receive this recognition, but more on that later.
Previous winners of the Harry Belafonte Award include Stacey Abrams, Jane Fonda, and Jasmine Crockett.
In recent months, Springsteen has repeatedly spoken out against President Donald J. Trump, and in the wake of the shooting deaths of Renee Nicole Judd and Alex Peretti by federal immigration agents in Minnesota earlier this year, he wrote the song “Streets of Minneapolis,” criticizing the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration enforcement operations.
In accepting the Belafonte Medal, Springsteen dedicated it to “all the citizens of Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Portland who have stood against the federal invasion of their cities this year. So I will accept this and hold it in their name.” His comments reference cities where people have been shot by federal immigration agents.
After telling a story he heard from Belafonte about how Martin Luther King and members of the civil rights movement tried to find a way to work with Robert Kennedy when he was appointed attorney general, Bono asked Springsteen — in keeping with the way he heard King ask for “one good thing about that spirit, because that one thing is the door through which our movement will pass” — “What’s the one good thing we’re going to find here too, so people can go back to being neighbors and in the neighborhood Isn’t America so divided?
Although Springsteen quickly said he didn’t know the answer to that question, he acknowledged the country’s divisive climate and shared his view on the United States ahead of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a philosophy that may offer a way forward.
He added: “America is a sacred argument.” “People aren’t supposed to be in agreement with each other all the time in the first place. [America] Born into discord. It is a blessed and sacred argument that you are supposed to have every day with your fellow citizens and with your representatives. So this is just a part of the state integrated into the state itself. The key to this is to have this argument while recognizing each other’s shared humanity and dignity. And that’s something that’s not there right now, from the top of our administration down, you know, but through that argument and through recognition of your fellow citizens, your brothers, your sisters, your neighbors, that’s where you find a common narrative. It is very difficult for a country to survive an attack without a common story to tell itself about itself, and so I think we are struggling with that today. “I think we will find that narrative, because I believe America is renewing itself.”
Although Springsteen was limited in his comments about Trump on stage Saturday, De Niro, as usual, couldn’t resist taking some shots at the president.
“[Springsteen] He knows what the problem is, and he calls it: Donald Trump. “Donald J. Trump and his wimps,” De Niro said as he introduced Springsteen. “This is so important because this isn’t about reasonable disputes about policy. This is about the corruption and paranoia of one person. Bruce Springsteen puts a face on it, and he does it with the words of a poet.”
Springsteen expressed his appreciation for De Niro’s comments, saying in part: “Nobody insults Trump better than Bob.”
“The thing I love most is when Bob says Donald J. Trump,” he added.
The rocker who won a special Tony Award for his work Springsteen on Broadway The show recalled its aspect of De Niro’s infamous introduction for his 2018 Tony performance, when De Niro shouted “Fuck Trump” on national television during the president’s first term.
Recalling how De Niro said he would introduce him, Springsteen said he was excited for one of his “heroes” to receive the honor.
“So we go to the show; I’m backstage; Bob comes out, and I have an arrangement of ‘My Hometown’. I think this thing is going to kill everybody. There’s not going to be a dry eye in the house or any living room in the United States when I’m done with this,” Springsteen said. “I feel really good and really confident. Bob comes out and says, “Fuck Donald Trump, Bruce Springsteen.” He ruined the whole thing. I wanted to say, “Bob, why did you do that?” You can’t walk out after someone says, “Fuck Donald Trump.”
Introducing Springsteen, Bono recalls how Springsteen, Patti Smith, the Ramones and De Niro probably saved his life when he was a teenager. He said Springsteen’s words reflect the cinematic approach America uses to tell its story.
Bono said: “Cinema is the place where the American dream was encoded before it was exported, and what followed American cinema around the world? American music: jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll broke through every barrier, opened every wall. American music made freedom ring for people in Europe, Africa and Asia. … Bruce Springsteen is America.” “Bruce made poetry out of people’s voices and turned that poetry into music. We honor him tonight as a musician and a poet, as an activist and a patriot. And I would suggest that we honor him as a singer who was also making movies all this time. … Bruce Springsteen became perhaps one of the most visible Americans on the planet because he never appeared in the widescreen cinema he loved so much; he made his music widescreen instead. … Bruce is not television; he can do theater, but the lights go out in the movies. Here he is, 124 frames per second, 124 times larger than life, surround sound, so, from the intimate whisper to the aggressive roar, life is turned up to 11, and always cutting to the man sitting in the corner, holding something that no one can see, but Bruce can feel, and more than that, Bruce can sing it, because in some ways, Bruce was that man I had the audacity to ask this great songwriter why he didn’t write more about himself, and I received one of the few looks that… I’ve had it over the years from the one guy who I’ll call ‘The Boss’ to be fair. He said, ‘Why would anyone be interested in my life?’
After accepting the award, Bono and Springsteen welcomed Smith to the stage, where she performed “Peaceable Kingdom” before Smith, Bono and Springsteen joined together for a rousing performance of Smith’s “People Have the Power.”
Smith ended the song by telling the crowd in lower Manhattan: “Don’t forget it; use your voice.”
Springsteen then stayed on stage to perform “Land of Hopes and Dreams,” concluding by saying, “God Bless America,” and, just hours before the NBA Finals win in New York, “Go Knicks.”
