Broadway stars honor Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Oscar Grant at World Trade Center site

theGRIO VIDEO - Broadway actors recently teamed up to perform a moving tribute in honor of the nearly 3000 lives lost during the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, and also the deaths of unarmed civilians Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant and more...

Broadway performers recently teamed up to create a moving tribute in honor of the nearly 3000 lives lost during the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and also the deaths of unarmed civilians Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant and more.

The video features 3 stars of Broadway’s The Lion King, Jamal Lee Harris, James Brown-Orleans, and Mduduzi Madera-Duma.

Harris, who created the viral video (with nearly 8 million views) in August of The Lion King Cast singing “Circle of Life” on an NYC Subway, made this video “to honor the long list of unarmed black men in the United States killed by the police.”

Lee and his fellow cast members decided to perform a mashup of John Lenon’s “Imagine” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” because they believe both songs have a rich social and cultural significance that still resonates today.

“It seems like every time a story like the death of unarmed teen Michael Brown and the subsequent unrest in Ferguson, MO, or the death of Eric Garner at the hands of an NYPD officer hits the news there is a big reaction … followed by a big distraction,” Lee says. “I’d like to send the message that, just like the victims of 9/11, we will never forget these men or stop telling their stories.”

The video also honors the lives of Timothy Stansbury Jr., an unarmed black teen who was shot and killed by the NYPD in 2004, Johnathan Ferrell, an unarmed black college football player had just been in a car accident and was shot and killed by a Charlotte police officer in 2013, and the 2010 fatal shooting of 25-year-old Aaron Campbell in Portland, Oregon.

Follow Chris Witherspoon on Twitter for more entertainment news at @WitherspoonC.

 

 

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