John Legend Fights to End Mass Incarceration With FreeAmerica
On top of his day job of, well, being John Legend, the EGOT winner also leads his nonprofit, FreeAmerica. Legend’s social-impact organization has two main initiatives: Unlocked Futures, a campaign to end mass incarceration through storytelling, education and policy reform, and HumanLevel, a movement to uplift communities disproportionately impacted by institutionalized racism by working hands-on at the local level.
Growing up in a lower-middle-class Black family in the majority-white town of Springfield, Ohio, Legend saw firsthand that the justice system needed changing. “I knew what it was like to be from a community that might be overlooked and ignored,” he tells THR. “I also grew up with a lot of people who got caught up in the criminal justice system — family members, good friends who spent time in jail or prison. Even now, if you go back to our hometown and the area around it, there are so many people that are dealing with addiction when it comes to opiates.”
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He adds, “For too long, I think the government’s solution to these challenges has been not to invest more, not to develop our young more, not to better educate them, not to better prepare them, but to find ways to punish people for falling into addiction, punish people for falling into despair.”
With FreeAmerica, the focus is on investing in communities themselves. “There’s got to be a better answer than [locking] more people up,” he says.
FreeAmerica’s digital campaigns like #MyPotential work to put a human face on the mass incarceration epidemic, educating millions via social media about the personal narratives of current and formerly incarcerated individuals and their families. There was also the 2016 #FREETHEVOTE campaign, a digital and on-the-ground initiative that encouraged the formerly incarcerated to learn about their voting rights and register to vote. As for HumanLevel, the organization’s fellowship program has placed 110 fellows in 24 cities across the United States to complete one- to two-year paid local community impact projects in the areas of jobs, housing, education, health and criminal justice.
“We’ve seen the backlash happen against racial progress, against criminal justice reform, and so a lot of the work we’re doing is to counter that narrative,” Legend says. “We can’t get tired of speaking out, because the people who are against progress and against justice haven’t gotten tired of fighting it.”
Legend’s activism often serves as inspiration for his music, and vice versa. In 2015, he won the Oscar for best original song for Selma’s “Glory,” co-written with Common. Inspired by the film’s story surrounding Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights Movement’s epic march from Selma to Montgomery, the song also speaks to the present day Black Lives Matter movement, following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown and the Ferguson, Missouri protests that followed in 2014.
“We wrote the song inspired by them,” Legend says of the protesters in Ferguson. “And then, of course, our song became another inspiration for them to march to. I think there’s that kind of symbiosis, that kind of circular connection between the protesters and artists who are responding, but also inspiring the protesters.”
All of Legend’s nonprofit work is supported on the administrative side by Social Impact Fund. “You need that kind of infrastructure so that you can focus on doing the work you want to do,” the “All of Me” singer and The Voice coach says of working with SIF. “That way, I don’t have to worry about whether our money is being taken care of properly, and that we’re complying with all the regulations.” He adds, “My main focus is still making music, so I have to have a team that I can trust to run all this stuff.”
This story first appeared in the Aug. 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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