Lynda Carter spoke to a crowd of protesters outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday night, September 18, as hundreds of people joined hands to form a human chain around the building. The rally came three days after the center’s board voted to close the venue and two days after President Donald Trump said the complex could be “ripped down” if his name does not go on the main building.
The crowd cheered when Carter was handed the microphone. “This is not your building,” she said. “It belongs to us. Hands off.”
Carter has lived in the Washington area for decades and has performed at the Kennedy Center. She was scheduled to headline the venue with her All-Star Band in April 2020, and she has attended the Kennedy Center Honors gala with her husband, Robert A. Altman, including the 2015 and 2016 ceremonies.
She also helped build turnout ahead of time. Carter promoted the event, billed as “Hands Around the Kennedy Center,” on Instagram and on Bluesky, where she has more than 160,000 followers. “AMERICA built this city. Not a president,” she wrote in her post.
The Protest
The demonstration was organized by Hands Off the Arts, a coalition of artists, former Kennedy Center employees and supporters. The group has held weekly Friday protests since Trump’s name was added to the building’s facade last December. Organizers said more than 1,500 people had RSVP’d by Thursday and estimated the actual crowd was larger.
Local performer and organizer Tara Hoot served as emcee from a makeshift stage outside the center. Other speakers included D.C. Council member Robert White and Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat. The Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, which represents more than 150 local unions, also promoted the event.
One attendee, Rhodesia Assad, traveled from Atlanta and got a photo with Carter. She told the Associated Press she had idolized Carter since childhood and was brought to tears by meeting her.
How the Kennedy Center Got Here
On Tuesday, September 15, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper blocked two new board proposals: adding the words “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” to the main building, and renaming the campus “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” Cooper ruled that both violated his earlier injunction and a federal statute, and wrote that the board was engaged in “linguistic gymnastics” to get Trump’s name onto the grounds. Any memorial at the Kennedy Center, he wrote, requires approval from Congress.
The board voted to close the center in a meeting that began minutes after the ruling. The Trump-appointed trustees tied the closure to a planned two-year, $250 million renovation, citing the center’s finances and structural problems they said put staff and the public at risk. Administrators told the board the main building’s physical plant is unsafe and that the center is “within weeks” of bankruptcy.
Trump then said the closure would take effect immediately but that renovation would not begin until the D.C. Circuit rules on the board’s name change. If that ruling goes against the board and the Supreme Court does not overturn it, he said, the renovation will not happen at all.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who sits on the board as an ex officio member and is the plaintiff in the federal case, asked Cooper for an emergency hearing on Wednesday, arguing the closure violates his May order. That order had required Trump’s name to be removed from the building and barred the board from shutting down the center without the court’s sign-off.
On Thursday, Cooper ordered the Kennedy Center to give 30 days’ notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolition. A Kennedy Center spokesperson said urgent renovations are needed to protect patrons, artists and staff. The building is currently fenced off and closed to the public, and its future is still before the court.
Sources: WTOP, FOX 5 DC, Yahoo News, The Washington Current, KTVB, ABC News, NPR, TheWrap, Black America Web, CNBC, Kennedy Center, UPI
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