Sunday 11 August 2013

Mayor of DC Un-invited Donnie McClurkin From The Civil Rights Concert At The Washington Mall!



Grammy award winner, songwriter and minister, Pastor Donnie McClurkin was uninvited form the civil rights concert in the most embarrassing way..

Here's what he had to say about this turnout..

Hey everybody, am sending out this socialcam a little disgruntled but more than anything else to rectify something That’s been done and address it so this way you’ll know my heart.
The mayor of DC; Vincent C. Gray uninvited me from a concert that I was supposed to headline today in the Washington Mall commemorating and commenting on the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement, I was asked not to attend, although am considered the headliner for the concert and advertisers have been circulated, and the churches as well as the community are prepared to come up in tens of thousands into the Washington Mall area. And last night on the way to the airport we received the telephone call from the promoters who have received word from the mayor’s office as well as the art commission that I was not welcomed and uninvited (The night before the concert).

Quite unfortunate that in today a black man/artiste is uninvited form a civil rights movement; depicting the love, the unity, the peace, the tolerance. The platform was entitled "From Gandy to King"; the peace movement, the love movement and dignitaries from India as well as ambassadors from America and the church community, the peaceful element of the community will be coming together to comment and commemorate this wonderful move; an evolution, and they waited until the last moments to demand that am taken off of the concert. Discrimination, Bullying is still a part of this. It’s bullying, its discrimination, its intolerance and it’s depriving someone of their civil rights when they’re told that they cannot come to an event and by coming it will cause a disruption, yet they haven’t spoken to 15 to 20 persons who protested, compared to thousands, who’re coming out to worship Jesus and to hear the gospel in music. 
Please continue...
The promoters ha the greatest integrity they fought very hard for this to continue but the mayor’s office systematically and continuously shut it down. The promoters went to the pastors throughout the DC area and the pastors called the Mayor’s Office, he refused to concede the offer to make it something that would be at their own expense and not the city’s’ and he still refused.

This again is unfortunate, it is intolerance, it’s a bully tactics simply because of stances that I took never ever demeaning or derogatorily addressing any lifestyle; but this is a civil rights infringement situation and imagine that in the twentieth century, 2013, I a black man asked not to attend a event because of politics, you know it’s a shame but to every one of you that was expecting me to come, they sent out a press release saying that ‘Through mutual agreement I withdrew form this concert” that couldn't be close to the truth, it’s the farthest from the truth that there is.
There has never been a conversation on mutual agreement for me to pull back, where I would agree, we did have a conversation last night for about 35 mins with Chris Murphy form the mayor’s office trying to convince me that although this is wrong for them to do, it will be in my best interest not to come so this way I wouldn't suffer from the fall out and from the social media and the media per se vilifying me and he said I wouldn't want  them to bring  up stuff from the past and then threatened me that that’s what’s going to happen if I do so.
Well I've been in this fight before, there’s not too much threat you can make that would cause me to fear any man, fear any situation. But for the sake of peace, well I haven’t decided if am coming or not but they have taken me off the concert, I just want those who are coming or expecting me to know this, it was the mayor’s office and the Arts commission, the promoters are most integral, the pastors in the community tried to call but their voices were ignored as this was the will of the mayor and a few protesters.
So please forgive my absence if indeed I am absent, but there will be further dealings with this, and I cannot let this go undone.
Prayer for me and I go further in rectifying the situation and try to make sure that this does not happen to anyone else... There should always be freedom of speech as long as it is done in love…


Click this link to watch the video…

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