Oscar and Grammy-winning singer-songwriter John Legend stopped by ABC’s “The View” Tuesday, where he played a true-or-false game about himself, introduced two a cappella singing groups from his new Pop TV show, and spent a serious moment speaking about the state of the civil rights fight, past and present.
Legend not only co-wrote the Oscar-winning song “Glory” for Martin Luther King drama “Selma,” he is also active in the civil rights battle, doing a documentary called “Southern Rites” through his Get Lifted Film Co., and he recently launched Free America — a multi-year initiative to end mass incarceration in the United States.
“As we think about what it means to have equal rights for everybody, we can’t talk about that without talking about what’s going on in the criminal justice system, as we see in events happening every day,” Legend said. “Every week it seems like there’s something new with people being shot or killed by the police; we have a mass incarceration problem in this country.”
He continued: “I’m heartened by the fact that I think more and more politicians are seeing that — on both sides — and saying we’ve got to do something smarter, something more compassionate and something that’s better for our communities on the whole.”
Legend later plugged his new show “Sing It On” on Pop. Two of his a capella groups joined him on the ABC gabfest to show off their stuff.
Raven-Symone and Mario Cantone were guest hosts on Tuesday.
Watch the video above.