The Fenway Park Summer Concert Series approaches its 20th season of bringing live music to Fenway Park, home of the iconic Boston Red Sox. As it approaches its 20th season of live music at Fenway Park, a troubling and continuing stain on the City of Boston remains.
Remarkably, in those 20 years of Summer Concerts at Fenway — and now, nearly 100 concerts later — not one concert has been headlined by a Black person in a city that has a racial make-up of 55% residents who identify themselves as either Black or as a person of color. Not one.
In fact, the closest a Black artist has come to headlining a Fenway Park Summer concert was in 2013 when Jay-Z “co-headlined” with Justin Timberlake for two nights. Given that Black people essentially created American music — with its roots engendered in the slave chants of the plantations, the Spirituals, the Blues, Jazz and Rock and Roll — it would seem natural that Black artists would be given deference and appreciation by giving them performing access to Fenway Park. But such has not been the case.