WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing another wintry wallop, the White House decided to move a concert celebrating civil rights music from Wednesday to Tuesday night to beat what could be a second crippling storm in a week.
The White House announced that Wednesday's concert would be performed on Tuesday because of storm threatening to dump another heavy load of snow on the nation's capital, where the federal government has been shut down for days. President Barack Obama planned remarks, and first lady Michelle Obama was also set to attend the event, which transformed the formal East Room into a concert-style stage.
Smokey Robinson, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez planned to perform, along with Yolanda Adams, Natalie Cole, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, John Mellencamp, Seal and the Blind Boys of Alabama. The Howard University Choir and The Freedom Singers also were set to perform at an event featuring remarks by Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Queen Latifah.
Tuesday night's concert is just the latest imprint Mrs. Obama has left on Washington's social scene. There was a conga line to Earth, Wind and Fire's performance when the Obamas hosted the nation's governors a year ago. Stevie Wonder played a concert in the East Room. Marc Anthony took to the South Lawn for an evening of Latin music, and Foo Fighters played the Fourth of July party there.
Mrs. Obama also brought top classical music performers such as Joshua Bell to the White House to work with high school students. That model repeated itself in a pre-concert workshop Tuesday when they heard from Robinson and Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, one of the original Freedom Singers in the 1960s who traveled around the country sharing stories from the civil rights movement. Yolanda Adams and Toshi Reagon also took up microphones and performed songs from that era.
Obama and his election as the nation's first black president should be a point of pride for the students in the regal dining room, Robinson told students.
"We've come a long, long way," said Robinson, who also performed.
The concert was to be televised at 8 p.m. Thursday on public broadcasting stations nationwide as part of the "In Performance at the White House" series. National Public Radio also planned a one-hour concert special from the event to be broadcast nationwide on NPR stations beginning Friday.
Washington has been buried in snow since winter weather began piling onto the region Friday. Some places were already under nearly 3 feet, and another round could dump as much of 20 inches in Washington by Wednesday night.
