Gospel singer Donnie McClurkin did not sing at a Martin Luther King Jr. event in Washington DC event on Saturday night because gay rights activists did not approve of the idea. McClurkin has said in the past that God delivered him from homosexuality, which he called a “curse.”
According to The Washington Post, McClurkin was supposed to perform at the Reflections on Peace: From Gandhi to King, an event held at the MLK memorial as part of the celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. But Mayor Vincent C. Gray asked that he not perform following a meeting with gay rights activists on Friday.
In a statement, Gray’s spokeswoman said that “The Arts and Humanities Commission and Donnie McClurkin’s management decided that it would be best for him to withdraw because the purpose of the event is to bring people together...Mayor Gray said the purpose of the event is to promote peace and harmony. That is what King was all about.”
McClurkin said in a video though that he was “asked not to attend.” According to The Wall Street Journal, McClurkin said that he received a call on the way to the airport from the show’s promoters.
“Last night, on the way to the airport, we received a telephone call from the promoters who had received word from the Mayor’s office –Mayor Gray’s office– as well as the arts commission that I was not welcomed and uninvited the night before the concert,” McClurkin, a Grammy winner, said. “[It’s] quite unfortunate that in today a black man, a black artist is uninvited from a civil rights movement depicting the love, the unity, the peace, the tolerance.”
He added that “These are bully tactics simply because of stances that I took never, ever demeaning, never, ever derogatorily addressing any, any lifestyle.”
Concert director Nolan Williams told the Post that he would have liked McClurkin to perform, even if the audience didn’t agree with his opinions on homosexuality. “Even in Tiananmen Square, they were singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ The fight for human rights is a global fight that has to bring us together...That has to bring us together whenever there are differences of opinions or differences in views. We still need to find a place to come together even when we don’t agree,” he said.