MLK Day Concert Finds New Home After 23-Year Run At The Kennedy Center

The Georgetown University-produced event is moving to another historic venue in Washington, D.C.

Let Freedom Ring!, the annual concert celebrating the life of Martin Luther King Jr., has been a Kennedy Center tradition for more than two decades, but this year, the event will have a new home.

Concert organizers said they are moving the show to D.C.’s Howard Theatre to save money. But some support the change for reasons unrelated to finances.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the Kennedy Center’s former artistic director, expressed support for the move, noting that Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission does not align with that of the current presidential administration.

“I would much rather that we all be spared the hypocrisy of celebrating a man who not only fought for justice but also articulated the case for equity perhaps better than anyone in American history—when the official position of this administration is an anti-equity stance,” Joseph, who was abruptly fired from his previous role in March 2025, told NPR.

The termination followed President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center, during which he named himself chair and dismissed most of the board of trustees. The president criticized past Kennedy Center events, calling them “woke,” and issued an executive order demanding an end to diversity in cultural programming.

This concert’s move follows a series of cancellations and relocations. The Washington National Opera announced it will relocate its performances from the Kennedy Center, ending a 50‑year run there. Additionally, jazz musician Chuck Redd, who has hosted the Holiday Jazz Jams there since 2006, canceled his Christmas Eve performance after the Trump administration renamed the facility the “Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Composer Nolan Williams Jr., who has served as Let Freedom Ring‘s music producer since 2003, wrote a song for this year’s event called “Just Like Selma,” inspired by King’s famous quote: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Rapper and actor Common will headline this year’s show, which will feature the Missionary Kings of Harmony of the United House of Prayer for All People’s Anacostia congregation.

The Let Freedom Ring! concert for MLK Day will take place Monday, Jan. 19 at 6 p.m.