Over 60,000 people gathered on Central Park’s Great Lawn Saturday for the 2015 Global Citizens Festival—an event featuring world leaders and socially conscious artists who wish to shed light on the issue of global poverty, and how to end it.
“Everybody in the world is entitled to be treated with dignity. No time in the history of the world has it been harder to hide injustice,” said Vice President Joe Biden. “I see a sea of global citizens. We can change the world, we really can, you can. At no time in history has so much power been available to make such a difference for so many people. I refuse to believe that we’re not going to try.”
Pledges were made onstage that will affect the lives of more than 92 million people, and the festival, which was livestreamed to millions courtesy of MSNBC and YouTube, was hosted by the likes of Stephen Colbert, Kerry Washington, and Hugh Jackman, and featured performances and speeches from Leonardo DiCaprio, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Common, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, Beyoncé, and more.
The day’s biggest onstage surprise came courtesy of Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, who invited out the inimitable Beyoncé to perform an acoustic rendition of Bob Marley’s famous ballad, “Redemption Song.” Watch it here:
