Kennedy Center Honors: An Artistic Mecca
In the hierarchy of horrors that Trump has inflicted on the nation and the world, the violation of the Kennedy Center ranks fairly low. It fits, though, a pattern: prosecuting the”culture war” against institutions deemed excessively “woke.”
In early 2025, Trump purged the Kennedy Center’s bipartisan board, including its chairman, and installed loyalists. In late 2025, the handpicked board renamed the center to include Trump’s name and added it to the marble facade. High profile artists cut ties in protest. Then, in the early hours of June 13, 2026, responding to a court order to remove Trump’s name, workers hung massive tarps across the front of the center, having presumably scrubbed Tump’s name. The drapes remain today.
An August 25, 2026 article in The New York Times carries the headline: Trump Lawyers Warn That Kennedy Center Might Need Demolition if Not Fixed. The same day, the Washington Post reported Kennedy Center Finances Deteriorated Sharply After Trump Name Change.
Some history
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1955, pushed for a “national public auditorium,” he recalled how as he led Allied troops in World War II, he learned that there was global respect for America’s might and industry, but not for its culture. “When it came to culture, the tone became condescending,” he said.
Three years later, he signed the National Cultural Center Act confirming the inherent value of the arts to all Americans and creating a commission for a new public auditorium in the nation’s capital — an “artistic Mecca that would be open to visitors from every land.” The act also spelled out an artistic mandate to present a wide variety of both classical and contemporary performances, it specified an educational mission for the center, and it stated that the center was to be an independent facility, self-sustaining, and privately funded.
President John F. Kennedy took the lead in raising funds for the new auditorium, kicking off a $30 million fundraising campaign in November of 1962, holding special White House luncheons and receptions, appointing his wife Jacqueline and Mrs. Eisenhower as honorary co-chairwomen, and in other ways placing the prestige of his office firmly behind the endeavor.
At a star-studded 1962 televised fundraiser, Kennedy declared: “As a great democratic society, we have a special responsibility to the arts, for art is the great democrat calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color.”
(When I was a junior in high school, I took $25 from my baby- and pet-sitting earnings and made the first charitable “gift” in my life. I loved our Camelot president and I loved concerts.)
Two months after Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Congress passed legislation renaming the National Cultural Center as a “living memorial” to Kennedy. President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law, authorizing $23 million for construction of what became the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The center opened to the public on September 8, 1971, with a gala performance featuring the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Requiem, commissioned in honor of President Kennedy.
A signature event
Beginning in 1978, the center added a signature event beyond its 2,000 plus performances each year: the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual celebration recognizing a pantheon of outstanding performing artists, five per year. The list, which includes some 250 artists to date, is stunning — trending, for better or worse, towards hugely visible and popular artists: Ella Fitzgerald, Aaron Copeland, Tennessee Williams, Benny Goodman, Ray Charles, Alvin Ailey, Lena Horne, Paul Newman, Pete Seeger, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Willie Nelson, Chita Rivera, Martin Scorsese, Dolly Parton, Morgan Freeman, Mel Brooks, Steve Martin, Barbra Streisand, Joan Baez, Dizzy Gillespie, Kirk Douglas, Agnes de Mille, Queen Latifah and hundreds more.
By tradition, every honors celebration has a host. The first included Leonard Bernstein in 1978, followed by Eric Sevareid in 1979 (with Gene Kelly closing it) and Beverly Sills in 1980. Other early hosts included Walter Cronkite (1981 – 2002); Caroline Kennedy (2003 – 2012), Glenn Close (2013) and Stephen Colbert (2014 – 2016). Often the individual delivering the tribute to a particular artist is as distinguished as the honoree (e.g., Audrey Hepburn introducing Cary Grant).
Donald Trump appointed himself the host of the 2025 Kennedy Honors ceremony, the first time he had attended the event having skipped previous years while president. Normally, the sitting president and his wife flank the honorees at these celebrations.
“You make me feel”
I knew little about the Kennedy Center Honors until I tracked down a video of Aretha Franklin’s amazing 2015 homage to Carole King. Aretha, then 73, appears on the Kennedy stage in an enormous mink coat, sits down at the piano, and begins:
Looking out on the morning rain
I used to feel so uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day
Lord, it made me feel so tired
Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But you’re the key to my peace of mind
‘Cause you make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman.
Carole King, flanked by Barack and Michele Obama, gasps.
Towards the end of her performance, Aretha walks to the edge of the stage, takes off her coat to reveal a sparkling gown, and brings it home:
Oh, baby, what you done to me?
You make me feel so good inside
And I just wanna be close to you
You make me feel so alive
You make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
You make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
Carole King and much of the audience were in tears. (So was I.)
Hooked on these video archives, I decided to explore as many as I could (over 200). In each case, the person (or sometime persons) offering the tribute brought their own “voice” to the occasion, whether it was Aretha Franklin regally singing from her heart, John Stewart channeling the New Jersey roots he and Bruce Springsteen shared, or John Williams and Jame Taylor serenading YoYo Ma.
Below I share ten tributes that struck me especially. They are alternately eloquent, funny, honest, moving, and joyful. Each video is roughly three to four minutes long. (No doubt, if you were doing the selecting, you would have included others.)
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